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The expectation of Siam 





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The Expectation of Siam 


BY 


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ARTHUR JUDSON ‘BROWN 


Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, New York 


Author of 
“The Mastery of the Far East” 
“The Why and How of Foreign Missions” 
“New Forces in Old China” 
“The Foreign Missionary,” etc. 





Cover and Decorations by Margaret Freeman 


Tue Boarp oF ForeiGn MIssions 
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 
156 Fifth Avenue, New York. 


CopyriGut, 1925, sy 
THE Board oF ForEIGN MIssions 
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 


Printed in the United States of America. 


CONTENTS 


Page 
Neoewormllitistrations. 6 sc te clos Uses amen oielete 5 
MPLANTOL OU pei Pare ate Peis Sh Wiaies ie ltie aes ee tae Z 
Chapter I—An Interesting Oriental Land....... 9 
Chapter II—Progress and Problems........... 41 
Chapter III—Siam and Western Nations....... 61 
Chapter IV—The Land of the Yellow Robe.... 85 
Chapter V—Pioneer Experiences.............. 107 
Chapter VI—The Missionary at Work......... 135 
Chapter VII—Methods and Results............ 167 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


Facing Page 


A Buddhist Temple in Bangkok................. 14 
EMEA OLP OCNOOL TITLES wars ei year meen Ce 74 
arab i@onsregation | eb kakrs ee eres ey si 74 
me paddhisti Priest ati Worship, 20s s dive o cao 88 
mepercer omen Danvkok Wane ol wie Une eae 118 
AVT ypical) River’ Market*Scene sy), vous erty as, 118 
Siamese Christian Workers and Converts........ 148 


Little Tots of Jane Hayes Memorial School, 


DAR PROM Gre cabled os inal te ee at Oh Benne Re EM ist 148 
Pamsoamege Mandornay cis stss sin pha nha pinion tu ohne Kad 178 
na Wee, ar olaimese Schodleiri. i. jaar ee eel 178 
“An”, a Pupil at Wattana Wittaya Academy..... 178 


Pupils of Bangkok Christian College............. 178 


By ARTHUR J. BROWN 








The Mastery of the Far East. 

The New Era in the Philippines. 

New Forces in Old China. 

The Foreign Missionary. 

The Nearer and Farther East (Joint author). 
The Why and How of Foreign Missions. 
The Chinese Revolution. 

Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands. 


Unity and Missions—Can a Divided Church 
Save the World? 


Russia in Transformation. 





FOREWORD 


Siam is little known in America. This ignorance 
is not intentional. Lying off the main thorough- 
fares of the world, Siam is seldom visited by trav- 
elers. It is not involved in any acute international 
controversy. No nation, except France, has sought 
its territory, and French aggressions have not been 
recent. Its small foreign trade is not an important 
factor in world commerce. The people are so peace- 
able and well-behaved that they have been free 
from the turmoils and tragedies which make “news” 
for foreign journalists. Only one of the great re- 
ligious bodies in America, the Presbyterian, is con- 
ducting missionary work in Siam. Missionary 
periodicals and religious papers of other denomina- 
tions therefore have no special reason for keeping 
their readers informed about it. And so it has 
come to pass that Siam is seldom mentioned in 
American newspapers and magazines, that com- 
paratively few books on Siam have been published, 
and that these have had small circulation, most of 
them now being out of print. 

And yet the country is one of the most interest- 
ing of non-Christian lands, beautiful in its scenery, 
attractive in its people, and with a history of mis- 
sionary work abounding in stirring incidents and 
the experiences of devoted workers. 

The author has therefore gladly complied with 
the request to write this little book. It is designed 
primarily for those who are to study Siam in the 


numerous mission study classes throughout the 
country, and this consideration limits its size and 
price. The author trusts, however, that it will be 
of some interest to general readers. As Secretary 
of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, he 
has had direct relations for a quarter of a century 
with the American missionaries in Siam, has had 
many conferences with them, and has made a per- 
sonal visit to Siam, during which he traveled 
widely in the country and sought information not 
only from missionaries but from diplomatic repre- 
sentatives, European business men, Siamese offi- 
cials of all ranks, and native Christians in their own 
churches and homes. He has learned to love Siam 
and its people, and to honor the missionaries who 
have consecrated their lives to Siam “for Jesus’ 
sake”. That this little book may serve to increase 
interest in Siam is his earnest hope. 

In checking over the numerous data, the author 
gladly acknowledges the assistance of the Rev. 
Hugh Taylor, D.D., and Miss Bertha Blount of the 
Siam Mission, and Mr. Clarence A. Steele, formerly 
of the Mission and now Assistant Treasurer of the 
Board. In adapting the material to the use of mis- 
sion study classes, he has been greatly indebted to 
the assistance of his colleagues in the Home Base 
Department of the Board, at whose request the 
work was undertaken, particularly the Rev. Edwin 
E, White, of that Department, who has gone over 
the manuscript with painstaking care and made 
many helpful suggestions. 

ARTHUR JupDsoN Brown. 
156 Fifth Avenue, New York. 


ing Oriental Land 


An Interest 





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CHAPTER I 
AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 


The Gulf of Siam was smooth as glass as we 
entered it after leaving Singapore. We might have 
adapted the lines of one of Kipling’s “Barrack 
Room Ballads”: 


“The Injian Ocean sets an’ smiles 
So sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue; 
There aren’t a wave for miles an’ miles 
Excep’ the jiggle from the screw.” 


We were glad of the calm, for the Gulf of Siam 
is sometimes what a Londoner characterized the 
English Channel—‘“a nawsty bit of water”, and our 
steamer was a small tubby freight boat with lim- 
ited accommodations for passengers. However, our 
stateroom was clean, the German officers were 
courteous, and the Chinese steward zealously tried 
to make us comfortable—and partially succeeded. 
So the boat waddled along until, at nine on the 
morning of the fourth day, we arrived at the wide 
mouth of the Menam River. 

The first glimpse of Siam was not inspiring. Far 
away on either side stretched the low, flat delta of 
silt carried down by the great river through un- 
counted centuries. But here and there graceful 
palms relieved the monotony of the landscape, and 
presently the temples and palaces and crowded 
shipping of Bangkok came into view. At noon we 


10 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


were landed in this far famed capital, one of the 
most picturesque cities of all Asia. In common 
with every friendly American who visits Siam, we 
were most hospitably welcomed by the missionaries, 
and our hearts were warmed by the heartiness with 
which their greeting was reinforced by the Ameri- 
can Minister and his family and by representative 
Siamese. 


The Venice of Asia 


Bangkok is a fascinating city to a visitor. It lies 
upon both sides of the Menam River about twenty 
miles from the sea. The site is low and swampy. 
Nothing but the current of the river, aided by the 
tide, keeps the city from being depopulated by 
epidemics. The Government is doing much to lessen 
the dangers of the situation by preventive and 
sanitary measures. It employs a foreign medical 
inspector and it cooperates with medical mission- 
aries and freely adopts their recommendations. 
Prince Songkla spent several years in America 
studying the best methods of public health and 
hygiene. The population is variously estimated. 
A former American Minister to Siam, the Honor- 
able Hamilton King, said that it was nearly a 
million. The streets are filled with a motley throng, 
several races and many tribes being represented. 

Bangkok is often called the Venice of Asia, for 
although some excellent thoroughfares have been 
laid out in recent years, the chief highway for com- 





AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 11 





merce and pleasure is the river. Its broad surface 
is crowded with canoes, launches, houseboats and 
foreign ships, while the luxurious steam yacht of 
the King and the gunboats of the Royal Navy add 
to the picturesqueness of the scene. Numerous 
creeks and canals branch off on both sides and are 
used by innumerable small boats. Trade is repre- 
sented by scores of steam rice and saw mills and 
by thousands of shops and offices, including several 
large European and Chinese firms. Four clubs, 
nine foreign legations, and the Court make the city 
a center of social as well as of commercial and 
political activity. 

Paris is not France and Bangkok is not Siam, but 
in a notable way the life of the whole nation centers 
in Bangkok. It is one of the world’s important 
cities. From it as the seat of the government offi- 
cials are sent to various parts of the country to 
govern the provinces, and to Bangkok they peri- 
odically return to make their reports and get new 
instructions. Bangkok is a metropolis in which one 
finds paved streets, electric lights, street cars and 
a modern hotel. But the ancient and modern are 
in strange contrast. One sees jinrikshas and auto- 
mobiles, a Buddhist wat and a Christian church, 
bamboo shacks and elaborate palaces, crowded 
native bazaars and foreign department stores, dug- 
out canoes and steam launches. As all roads lead 
to Rome, so all roads in Siam lead to Bangkok. 

The Royal Palace grounds occupy an extensive 


12 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


section in the upper part of the city, and contain 
some splendid buildings which would grace a Euro- 
pean capital. There are famous wats (temples) of 
superb beauty and costly decorations. In one of 
these is the celebrated statue of the sleeping 
Buddha, and in still another several “relics” of 
Buddha. A pagoda with a carpet made of silver 
tape is the receptacle of a richly inlaid cabinet in 
which is preserved, with jealous care, the sacred 
Pali manuscripts. The Royal Library occupies a 
fine building, and contains not only rare Buddhist 
books in beautiful and expensive bindings but many 
modern books and periodicals in English. 

The foreign visitor usually inquires for “the 
white elephants” about which so much has been 
written. He is apt to be disappointed. The ele- 
phants are not white, except in the eyes and a few 
spots about the ears and the top of the head. The 
rest of the body is of a somewhat lighter shade than 
that of an ordinary elephant but is far from white. 
White eyed elephants, however, are rare and for- 
merly were highly prized. In times past they played 
a large part in the life of the nation. Wars between 
Siam and Burma were actually waged for pos- 
session of white elephants. They are still the ex- 
clusive property of the King, and when a wild one 
is caught, it must be sent to the royal stables. Soon 
after the ascension of the present King, a “white” 
elephant was brought to Siam amid great ceremony. 
Of late years, veneration for them has somewhat 


Se ed 


' AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 13 
UO) EEE i SRI ta ERR al dhs 
waned, though visitors to Bangkok are certain to 
hunt them out. 


The Charm of Siam 


The country of which Bangkok is the capital and 
metropolis is one of the most interesting and beau- 
tiful of tropical lands. Its foliage is exuberant. Its 
palms and bamboos, and other trees unfamiliar to 
western eyes, make a varied background for the 
brilliant flowers, the varied costumes of the people, 
and the gorgeous hues of wats and palaces. How- 
ever bright the colors and however bold their com- 
bination, they do not jar or glare, but blend into soft 
tones in the tropical sunlight. In the jungles, sev- 
eral species of monkeys nimbly climb the trees; ele- 
phants crash their way through the dense under- 
growth; and tigers and snakes prove dangerous to 
man and beast. Everywhere animal and insect life 
is abundant. Apart from a few ponies and cattle, 
the chief beasts of burden are the clumsy but pow- 
erful water buffaloes and trained elephants. It is in- 
teresting in the teak lumber region to see the huge 
elephants intelligently piling the heavy logs. 

Siam has not figured largely in the world’s news. 
Its people live a quiet and orderly life. Unlike 
Japan, its ambition and policies have not challenged 
the attention of western nations. It has not the 
vast populations of China and India. But to stu- 
dents of nature in some of her fascinating forms, to 
lovers of humanity in unfamiliar types, and to 





£41) 000 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


hearts that are stirred by the lure of far frontiers, 
Siam is a land of rich disclosures. Here are quaint 
cities with their street bazaars, bejewelled temples, 
bronze skinned people in picturesque costume and 
many ornaments, and the pageantry of an Oriental 
court. 

Here is a kingdom that has remained free 
throughout the centuries, and here the only inde- 
pendent king remaining on the mainland of Asia is 
trying to lead his country into the life of the mod- 
ern world. Here Buddhism holds sway, that reli- 
gion that has almost as many followers in the world 
as Christianity in all its forms. Here monarchs 
have counseled with missionaries, and governors 
welcomed their advice and cooperation. Here mod- 
ern education, modern medicine and numerous im- 
provements are directly traceable to missions, and 
here the race of missionary pioneers continues to 
our day. Real pioneering is still going on and 
millions of unreached men, women and children, 
isolated beyond jungles and rivers and hills, still 
beckon to the messenger of Christ. Presbyterians 
particularly ought to know Siam, for here their 
Church, practically unaided by other Protestant 
Churches, is trying to reach a whole nation with the 
Gospel. 


By Houseboat and Elephant 


After a delightful and profitable visit in Bangkok, 
with its bountiful hospitality of missionaries, Siam- 





A BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN BANGKOK 





AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 15 


ese and the American Minister and his family, we 
made a long anticipated trip to northern Siam. We 
had done strenuous journeying in Japan, Korea, 
China and the Philippines, and it was an agreeable 
change to the leisurely and restful journeying by a 
Lao houseboat. The Menam River shallows rap- 
idly above Bangkok and there are numerous sand 
bars so that flat-bottom boats of light draft must 
be used, except at high water in the rainy season. 
Our boat was 25 feet long and six feet wide with a 
crew of five. It was too heavy to be rowed against 
the current. A footboard ran around the entire 
craft, and our Lao boatmen, stationed at the stern, 
thrust long bamboo iron-tipped poles in the bottom 
of the river, and pushed with bent shoulders while 
they walked the entire length of the boat, returning 
on the other side. This method of locomotion is 
very slow. As our time was limited and the distance 
to be covered great, we hired a launch to tow us as 
far as the depth of water permitted it to go. After 
that, we were laboriously poled up the river. The 
current was often strong, and we usually grounded 
several times a day on sand bars. Then the boat- 
men simply jumped overboard and pushed the boat 
off. They were good-natured and faithful, and we 
soon learned to like them. 

We were quite comfortable on this boat. There 
was a tiny six by eight space at the stern enclosed 
by mats of palm leaves over a bamboo frame. Here 
we slept, while our days were spent outside, rest- 


nnn UES EERE 


16 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





fully enjoying the changing scenery of the great 
river, the teeming vegetation, the occasional vil- 
lages, the bare-legged children, the huge water buf- 
faloes and the numerous canoes heaped with fruits 
and vegetables which came out at almost every vil- 
lage; while ever and anon we passed a great raft of 
teak logs floating from the forests above to Bang- 
kok for transhipment to England. Our larder was 
stocked with a variety of canned goods, a coop of 
a dozen live ducks, and fruits and vegetables were 
easily bought en route. We particularly enjoyed 
the pomelo, of the same family as our American 
grapefruit, but much larger. Our cook was a 
Chinese “boy” in his twenties. His stove was a 
small box partly filled with sand. He scooped a 
little hole in the sand, built a tiny fire of charcoal, 
and with that simple appliance did fairly well— 
when my wife stood over him and showed him how. 

“At Utradit, 300 miles above Bangkok, the river 
became too shallow even for our light draft house- 
boat. We therefore left it and continued our jour- 
ney on elephants, in company with Dr. and Mrs. 
Thomas who were returning from furlough and 
joined us at Utradit. Our Siamese fellow traveler, 
Mr. Boon Itt, who had charge of all arrangements, 
had difficulty in securing elephants as they are valu- 
able animals and none is kept for renting to stray 
travelers. The task was to find some owner who 
was willing to hire out his elephants for a long 
trip through the jungle. Finally, Mr. Boon Itt suc- 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 17 


ceeded in securing two elephants and two ponies. 
Dr. Thomas advised the ladies to travel on the ele- 
phants where the covered howdahs would protect 
them from the tropical sun, and they gladly con- 
sented. As the elephants had been used only for 
transporting freight and were not accustomed to 
carrying passengers, they could not be induced to 
kneel for us, and the only way that one could get on 
and off was from the platform of a house eight or 
ten feet above the ground, or, when no house was 
available, alongside a sloping trunk of a tree or a 
steep bank of a creek. They refused to stand side- 
wise and would stand only head on. There was 
then a ticklish moment while one was getting over 
the head and neck, too far on to get back and not 
far enough along to reach the howdah. Once an 
elephant snorted and started off before Mrs. Brown 
could secure a safe landing, and she had a bad fall. 
Other elephants, at later stages of the journey, had 
never before seen a man in foreign dress and, while 
not objecting to a woman’s approach, betrayed 
astonishing fright as Dr. Thomas and I approached 
them. It was therefore necessary for us to keep 
out of sight of the elephants on which our wives 
were riding. A few days afterward, two more ele- 
phants were secured and once in the howdahs our 
party could keep together. Since there was so 
much trouble in getting on and off the ill-trained 
elephants, we did not stop for luncheon, but climbed 
into the rude howdahs before seven in the morning 


18 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


took food and water with us, and plodded steadily 
on until four or five in the afternoon, when we 
stopped for the night. 

In spite of these little drawbacks, which seemed 
slighter at the time than they appear in the telling, 
that journey of two weeks through the mighty 
jungles of northern Siam was an enjoyable experi- 
ence. Our elephants jogged slowly along, pausing 
occasionally to browse tempting vegetation, and 
averaging about two miles an hour. But what did 
we care? Our interest was in the exuberant trop- 
ical vegetation, the lofty trees festooned with vines, 
orchids and other flowers of bewildering profusion, 
birds of brilliant plumage and raucous voices, and 
several varieties of monkeys excitedly commenting 
upon the passing caravan as they swung from 
branch to branch. Our narrow winding path some- 
times ascended steep hills, at others followed the 
boulder-strewn beds of mountain torrents. Cross- 
ing streams was interesting. The elephant stopped 
at the water’s edge and, after a careful exploration 
with its trunk, extended a huge foot into the mud 
and cautiously put it down to solid bottom several 
feet below. The other forefoot was then lifted and 
placed beside its fellow. When the two fore feet 
were firmly planted, one hind leg was slowly 
brought up, and then the other until all four feet 
were on the bottom. Meanwhile the howdah was 
rocking like a ship in a storm. It rocked worse 
when the huge beast reared backward, pulled one 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 19 


of his legs out of the mud and planted it in a new 
place, and then repeated the performance with his 
other legs, until he scrambled up the steep bank on 
the other side. 

Sometimes night would bring us to a sala, a plat- 
form on poles eight or ten feet high, roofed but 
with open sides, which is free to travelers. When 
no sala was available, we pitched our tents. One 
night we were awakened from sleep by what felt 
like scores of hot needles. A hurried investigation 
by candle light showed that the tent was alive with 
swarms of red ants, There was nothing for it but 
to rise, free blankets and clothing as best we could 
from the nocturnal pests, and move the tent to an- 
other place. 

Thus we journeyed from Utradit, where we had 
left the boat, to the mission stations at Prae, Lam- 
pang and Chiengmai, at each of which we were 
cordially welcomed, and spent happy days of fel- 
lowship with the devoted missionaries who were 
giving their lives to the people of northern Siam. 

The return trip from Chiengmai to Bangkok was 
made in company with the veteran Dr. Jonathan 
Wilson and his daughter. We journeyed in two 
houseboats, the depth of water in that branch of the 
river, called the Meping to its junction with the 
Menam at Pitsanuloke, permitting the use of a 
houseboat the entire distance of 600 miles. Never 
can we forget those days. The river forces its way 
through a mountain range amid scenery wild and 


20 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


picturesque beyond description. Rapids are nu- 
merous in this part of the river. Sometimes our 
boat shot them. At others, when this was too dan- 
gerous, the boatmen went ashore and with ropes 
lowered the boat cautiously through the boiling 
current. Disaster seemed imminent more than once, 
but we managed to “muddle through.” I find the 
following in my journal: “We are having a typical 
missionary trip on the river—in five days thus far 
four cases of fever on my boat, a drunken steersman 
smashing us into rocks three times in the rapids, a 
peacock for a Christmas turkey, the whole crew 
insisting on leaving at Raheng, etc. But we are in 
good health and we are enjoying the superb scenery 
during these Christmas holidays on the Meping. 
My medicine case came in handy and I am becom- 
ing something of a medical missionary. A fever 
case gets a dose of calomel and, after the purging, 
quinine. All are now convalescing.” 

That Christmas! It found us in an uninhabited 
region in the midst of magnificent scenery. The 
thoughtful missionaries in Chiengmai had given us 
a live peacock in a cage, and a tin of plum pudding. 
Our cook roasted the peacock over his box charcoal 
fire, and with bamboo sprouts, a sauce of a berry 
not unlike the cranberry, tropical fruits and the 
plum pudding, we had a Christmas dinner for a 
king, with towering forest-clad hills looking down 
upon us and a glorious moon flooding the river with 
soft light. 








AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 21 





Journeys of this kind are no longer necessary in 
Siam, for the railway now runs to Lampang and 
Chiengmai. But we shall always be glad that we 
had the joy of making that trip in the old days, and 
as the missionaries made it until a few years ago. 


A Glance at the Map 


Southeastern Asia is a vague section of the 
world’s map to most Americans. A few names 
clouded in a mist of fancy and story float in their 
minds—Rangoon, Mandalay, Singapore, Bangkok. 
Their atlases and geographies devote a whole page 
to a map of New Jersey and a whole page to India, 
Burma, and Siam together, and they rather uncon- 
sciously get the impression that there is some simi- 
larity in area and population. As a matter of fact, 
Siam has an area of 220,000 square miles. In other 
words it is about as large as Japan and Korea com- 
bined, larger than Germany and about equal to the 
combined area of the States of New York, Penn- 
sylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Delaware, Maryland, 
and all six of the New England States. Siam’s ter- 
ritory extends over 1,130 miles, the distance from 
New York to St. Louis. At its broadest part it is 
508 miles, the distance from New York to 
Pittsburgh. 

Siam is an irregularly shaped country, the main 
part of which lies between the twelfth and twenty- 
first parallels of latitude, but which sends a long 
peninsula southward to within four degrees of the 





22 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





equator. Its southern end is about parallel with 
Panama and its northern boundary with southern 
Cuba. North of Siam are the British Shan States 
and French Tongking; on the east are Anam and 
Cambodia, also French; on the south the Gulf of 
Siam and the Federated Malay States (British) ; 
and on the west the Indian Ocean and British 
Burma. Except, therefore, for a part of the penin- 
sula, the country is completely hemmed in by the 
French and British, although there is a coast line 
on the Gulf of Siam and Indian Ocean of 1,760 
miles. 

Northern Siam is a land of mountains and val- 
leys and rushing streams. The central and south- 
ern part is more level, a vast area being occupied 
by the broad, flat valley and delta of the Menam 
River. East of the Menam Valley there is an ele- 
vated plateau. The Menam is the great highway of 
Siam, and for centuries it was the only means of 
communication between the north and the south. 
At high water light-draught steamers ply its sur- 
face as far as Paknampo and launches for some dis- 
tance above that point. In the dry season the 
water becomes so shallow that only the small native 
boats can be used. The other great river, the 
Mekong, runs along the eastern boundary of Siam. 
This is also a very long stream, but its course is 
broken by so many rapids and obstructions that it 
is not navigable. The southern peninsula is trav- 
ersed almost its entire length by a mountain range 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 23 


of moderate height, although there are spacious 
grassy tracts near the coast. Generally speaking, 
the northern part of Siam may be characterized as 
a hill country; the eastern part as a table-land; the 
central part as an alluvial plain; and the southern 
part as a mountainous peninsula. 


Provincial Cities 


Bangkok, the national capital, has already been 
mentioned, but there are other cities of interest 
which should be noted. Chiengmai, six hundred 
miles north, is the second city of importance. What 
Bangkok is to the whole nation, Chiengmai is to 
its upper half. It is the terminus of the important 
railroad from Bangkok. In the old days before the 
Lao States came under the government of Siam, it 
was their capital and the home of the Lao princes. 

Ayuthia, as the ancient capital of Siam, is a place 
of historic interest. Ruins do not last long in a 
humid, tropical climate, but the visitor can still find 
some interesting traces of former splendor, includ- 
ing an old temple and a huge statue of Buddha 
which is famous. The city is the center of a con- 
siderable population. As we traveled in a house- 
boat from Bangkok up the Menam, the banks of the 
river for about seventy-five miles appeared to be 
almost continuous village streets, while above that 
point villages are numerous for two hundred miles 
from the capital. 

Korat, at the terminus of the northeastern branch 


24 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


of the railway 163 miles from Bangkok, is the cap- 
ital of a province of 346,000 people. Other local 
towns of interest are Paknampo at the junction of 
the Meping and Menam rivers, Pitsanuloke on the 
upper Menam, Raheng on the Meping whence the 
overland mail runners start across country for 
Moulmein, Burma. 

South of Bangkok, the leading towns are Ratburi 
and Petchaburi; Chantaboon, so long occupied by 
the French; Sritamarat, 400 miles from Bangkok 
on the east coast of the peninsula, and Trang, an 
important port on the west coast. 


90° in the Shade in January 


The climate is tropical. We were in Siam in the 
late fall and winter, which are called “the cool, 
healthy season.” We perspiringly conjectured, 
however, as Mark Twain did in India, that the term 
“winter” is used merely for convenience to distin- 
guish between weather that will melt a brass door- 
knob and weather that will make it only mushy. 
At any rate, the conditions were about those of an 
American July. The nights were fairly cool, and 
on a few exceptional mornings the thermometer fell 
to 56°; but on seven typical January days. the 
midday heat averaged 90° in the shade and 136° 
in the sun. In the northern part of the country the 
temperature of the “cool season” is about that of an 
American May. Wise foreigners wear pith helmets 
and white duck suits, screen their houses against the 





AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 25 





ubiquitous insects, boil their drinking water and, 
since germs quickly develop in exposed food, eat 
meats and vegetables that have been freshly cooked 
and fruits that are protected by rinds. With these 
and other sensible precautions, the average white 
man has as good health in Siam as in any other 
tropical country. In the hot season, March to June, 
the missionary does not perspire, he sweats; but 
when commiserated with, he smilingly replies, as a 
Swedish missionary in India did when a pitying 
traveler said: “Isn’t it awful to endure a tempera- 
ture of a hundred in the shade?” “Well, we don’t 
have to stay in the shade all the time.” 


Prolific Gifts of Nature 


The soil is, for the most part, exceedingly rich. 
The tropical climate and abundant rainfall nourish 
a prolific vegetation, except on the eastern table- 
land, which is not so well watered. The delta of 
the Menam is clothed with a dense growth of tall 
jungle grasses and bushes. In the north, and also 
on the peninsula, there are vast forests which . 
include some rare and valuable woods. The staple 
products of the country are lumber in the north; 
tin in the Malay Peninsula, where some of the 
greatest tin mines of the world are located; rice in 
the valleys, particularly in the rich delta of the 
Menam; and everywhere, in unlimited quantities, 
bananas, cocoanuts, limes, yams and other tropical 
and semi-tropical fruits and vegetables. The chief 


26 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


part of the world’s supply of teak comes from 
northern Siam, and British trading companies have 
agents all through this region, getting out this 
greatly prized lumber under concessions from the 
Government. 

The chief exports are rice, lumber and tin, and 
the chief imports are wine, beer, spirits and opium. 
Siam thus gives to the western world better prod- 
ucts than she receives. 


‘*The Free People”’ 


This large and favored land is the home of 
9,221,000 people. Away back in the misty begin- 
nings of history, a race called the Tai, meaning 
“The Free People,” came from somewhere in cen- 
tral Asia. They were not Chinese, being more 
nearly allied to the Aryan type of India than to the 
Mongolian. Fifty years before Abraham entered 
Canaan, the Chinese sent an ambassador to them. 
Before Moses was born, the Tai had spread over a 
goodly part of the territory we now call China. In 
the sixth century B. C., they migrated southward 
until they occupied the southern provinces of China. 
From there they overran Siam, Burma and Indo- 
China. In southern Siam they met the Cambodians, 
who had a civilization and a written language from 
India. These Tai mingled with the Cambodians 
and became the Siamese people. The Tai who 
went to Burma modified their language and be- 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 27 


came the western Shans occupying the Shan States 
of Burma. 

The main body of Tai remained by themselves 
and became what are known as the Lao people, 
occupying the Lao States of northern Siam. They 
are almost pure Tai, like their cousins left behind 
in the southern provinces of what is now the 
Chinese Republic. This section of the Tai race dif- 
fers from the Siamese in dialect, dress, and various 
customs and characteristics. The missionaries 
among them speak highly of their native ability and 
personal qualities. The author found them among 
the most attractive people that he met in Asia; 
clean, comparatively speaking, kindly, intelligent, 
and more responsive than most Asiatics to new re- 
ligious teaching. 

All the Tai peoples are of medium height and 
physical development, brown in color, with straight 
black hair, slightly flattened noses and eyes less 
oblique than those of the Chinese and Japanese. 


Other Peoples 


While the Tai are the characteristic people of 
Siam, the numerous Chinese must be taken into 
account. Exact figures cannot be given, for the 
Chinese have been coming to Siam for so long a 
period and have intermarried with the Siamese to 
such an extent that a considerable part of the popu- 
lation now contains more or less Chinese blood. 
Almost every Chinese has a Siamese wife and half- 





28 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





caste children. The father of the present King was 
said to be part Chinese. The blending of races is 
very noticeable in the mission schools, many of the 
pupils being of mixed ancestry. As in Burma and 
the Philippine Islands, the Chinese almost abso- 
lutely control trade. Every arriving steamer brings 
scores from Canton, Swatow, Foochow or Hainan, 
while Yunnanese traders are to be seen in every 
important town in the north. These Chinese immi- 
grants are introducing a more virile strain into the 
blood of the Siamese. They bring a stronger fibre, 
greater energy and persistence, and by their inter- 
marriage with the Siamese are in a measure com- 
municating these qualities to them. 

In addition to the Tai and the Chinese who to- 
gether form the bulk of the population, there is a 
motley collection of other peoples. About three- 
quarters of a million Malays are found in the south- 
ern districts and on the peninsula. Half a million 
Cambodians and Anamites have crossed the Mekong 
River from their original home and, like the Chi- 
nese, readily mingle with the Siamese. Mons, 
Karens and a few minor tribes make up a quarter 
of a million more. 


Aboriginal Tribes 


In out of the way places dwell tribes of little- 
known people almost untouched by the rest of the 
world. “At Trang,” a missionary writes, “we were 
frequently visited by aboriginal Negroids, the 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 29 


Samangs, living in the mountain recesses twenty 
miles back of Trang. They acquired such a taste 
for rice that they could not resist the temptation to 
come down to the plains to beg, borrow or steal it. 
The Siamese laughed at them for going about 
naked, so they begged a few clothes. In time they 
picked up a Siamese vocabulary. In a conversation 
with their headman, I learned that they have no 
places of worship but that they reverence a Great 
Spirit, pray to him and believe that when they die, 
if they have led clean lives, they go above to be 
with the Great Spirit in a happy place; but that if 
they lead evil lives they go below to a very evil and 
unhappy place. Disease is believed to be the work 
of evil spirits, but they make no offerings to appease 
them but pray the Great Spirit to help, then move 
to other quarters, and every few days move again 
until the sick die or get well. No more sickness or 
trouble means that the evil spirits have been driven 
away by the Great Spirit. These people catch their 
game with blow pipes and poisoned arrows. They 
are good shots and can hit a monkey in the top of 
the tallest tree. The poison acts quickly and almost 
immediately the monkey or bird falls to the ground. 
The flesh around the arrow point is cut away with 
a bamboo knife that has been hardened by charring 
and is very sharp. They build a fire by rubbing 
sticks together and cook roots and tender leaves in 
a bamboo pot or by roasting in the ashes. When 
they go on the chase they dig a pit and place their 





30 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





children and babies in it, throw brush over it, and 
a day or two later return and take the children out. 
They do not fear tigers because tigers are afraid 
that the pit is a trap and steer away from it. The 
youngsters do not mind it, and like young birds 
stick to their nest through an instinct that it is best 
to do so.” 


A Bit of History 


The territory now covered by Siam was formerly 
divided among several petty kingdoms. There were 
many wars between the Siamese and their neigh- 
bors, principally the Peguans and the Lao. The 
Siamese were generally victorious, and by 1350 
ruled over an extensive territory from their capital 
at Ayuthia. After two centuries of peace war again 
broke out with the Peguans (1556), who defeated 
their former conquerors, but the Siamese soon re- 
gained ascendency. The Burmese invasion of 1759 
overturned their power for a time, but in 1782 the 
Siamese line regained the throne and has held it 
ever since. 

While the Siamese proudly speak of their an- 
tiquity, authentic history of their separate existence 
as a nation does not run farther back than 1350. 
This is quite convenient, for the kings are supposed 
to be lineal descendants of Buddha and the people of 
the first disciples of Buddha, so that no one can 
prove to the satisfaction of the Siamese that these 
beliefs are unfounded. For the same reason, many 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 31 


miracles in the current legends are implicitly ac- 
cepted. Buddha is represented as doing the most 
amazing things and the imagination of the people is 
stirred by the alleged victorious wars of their an- 
cestors and by tales of suppliant embassies, brilliant 
alliances, and extraordinary manifestations of super- 
natural power. 


Benevolent Despots 


The “Free People” are far from free in a demo- 
cratic sense. Siam is an absolute monarchy, almost 
the only one left in the world. Japan theoretically 
lodges all power in the sovereign; but Japan has a 
constitution and a legislative body, and the real 
government is in the hands of the Elder Statesmen 
who are the Emperor’s “advisers”. But the King 
of Siam is absolute in both theory and practice. 
He is the source and center of all power, the owner 
of the whole country and all its people. However, 
while the earlier kings were as arbitrary as other 
oriental despots of their time, the recent rulers have 
been more enlightened and humane men. 

King Mongkut, who reigned from 1851 to 1868, 
accepted instruction in English and western science 
from a missionary, the Rev. J. Caswell. His son, 
the father of the present King, rejoiced in the name 
of Somdet Prabart, Prah Pramender, Mahar Chula- 
longkorn, Baudintaratape, Mahar Monkoot, Rar- 
tenah Rarchawewongse Racher Nekaradome 
Chatarantah Baromah, Mahar Chakrapart, Prah 





32 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Chula Chaumklow, Chow yu Huah. Those who 
felt that life is short called him simply King Chula- 
longkorn. 

He was the first monarch of Siam to visit other 
lands, and his travels in Europe in 1897 and 1907, 
and also in India and Java, greatly broadened his 
mind. He familiarized himself with the English 
language and the world’s great movements. He 
abolished the abject custom of prostrations at 
court, introduced European dress, established a 
royal museum, and adorned his capital with excel- 
lent streets, public gardens and a noble group of 
state buildings. He caused whole blocks of dilapi- 
dated huts to be torn down, and erected in their 
places neat two-story brick buildings. There was 
method in his improvements, for he rented the new 
structures at a handsome profit, but they were none 
the less a substantial benefit to the city. Strict 
Buddhist though he was, he and his high officials 
granted full religious toleration and leased valuable 
property to Christian missionaries at a nominal 
price and sometimes for nothing at all. His 
Majesty and over eighty princes and nobles made 
cash contributions to the mission school for boys 
in Bangkok, while the Queen gave $1,500 to form 
“The Queen’s Scholarship Fund” at the girls’ 
school. The King promoted free public schools, 
reformed the currency, began the construction of 
railways, and inaugurated other progressive meas- 
ures. 


AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 33 


The enlightened and progressive policy of the 
late King has been followed by his successor, Maha 
Vajiravudh, who was born January 1, 1881. From 
1893 to 1902 he studied in England. Before return- 
ing to his native land, he visited several European 
capitals and he then journeyed home by way of 
America and Japan. Several other princes of the 
royal family have studied in Europe, some in Eng- 
land and others in Germany, Denmark and Russia, 
while a few have come to America. 


The Simple Life 


One cannot fail to be impressed by the simplicity 
of the life of the average Siamese. They live in 
little villages tucked away under the trees, their 
houses of weathered wood and thatch set high on 
poles so as to afford a haven of refuge when the 
long rainy season floods the ground, and at other 
times a safe fold beneath for the pigs and bullocks 
and buffaloes. Along the rivers and canals, many 
floating houses are built on rafts of bamboo or zinc- 
covered teak pontoons and anchored to posts by 
rattan rings. 

The people are kindly, hospitable and contented. 
They do not lead the strenuous life. They lack the 
persistence and industry of the Chinese. Perhaps 
there are physical reasons for this. With less than 
seventeen inhabitants to the square kilometer, with 
rich soil, immense forests and innumerable water- 
ways in rivers and canals, several times the present 





34 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


population could be supported. Wants are few and 
readily supplied in a land of perpetual summer and 
prolific soil. Even the restless Yankee likes to take 
things easily under a torrid sun. It is not surpris- 
ing therefore that the Siamese do so. They need 
but little clothing and no fuel, except for cooking. 
Fish are readily caught in the sea and the innumer- 
able streams and canals. The banana, cocoanut, 
betel, mango, pomelo, orange, jackfruit and lime 
grow with little or no cultivation, and the simplest 
tillage suffices for abundant yields of rice and vege- 
tables. As for a house, one can be built in a day 
or two of the ever-present bamboo, thatched with 
attap and at practically no cost. There is therefore 
no such struggle for existence as that which de- 
veloped the vigor of the Scotch and the Pilgrim 
Fathers on their rocky hillsides, or of the Chinese 
on those densely populated plains where the in- 
dividual must incessantly toil or starve. The bitter 
poverty of China and Korea is unknown in Siam. 
There is not much money in circulation, but the 
typical Siamese is sleek and well-fed. Siamese 
women wear more gold and silver ornaments than 
any other natives of Asia. 


Children’s Joys and Sorrows 


The children in Siam are remarkably active, 
bright-eyed, playful, good-natured little ones, 
towards whom one’s heart quickly goes out. Their 
little bodies are plump, as food is abundant. 





AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 35 





They wear little clothing, sometimes none at all, 
but many of them wear anklets, wristlets or neck- 
laces, which are frequently of silver. The common 
beast of burden, the water buffalo, is a huge beast 
that is apt to be savage with strangers. It is some- 
times dangerous for a visitor to approach one, as it 
is as ready as a watch dog to charge one whom 
it regards as an intruder. The children of the 
family, however, make great friends with these 
huge beasts, and nothing is more common than to 
see chubby youngsters perched on the back of a 
water buffalo, which appears to be quite content 
and indeed proud of the little burden that it bears. 
The death rate among children, however, is high, 
as it is in most non-Christian lands, on account of 
the unsanitary conditions of the typical village, the 
carelessness in eating improper food, the drinking 
of impure water, and the ignorance of proper 
methods of treating disease. American children 
would probably succumb under these conditions 
more readily than Siamese children, but many of 
the latter appear to be able to survive conditions 
which would quickly bring trouble to a foreigner. 


The Place of Women 


The women of Siam are usually attractive in their 
younger years, but they age in appearance earlier 
than American women. A Siamese woman at forty 
is usually as old in appearance as an American 
woman at sixty. Many of the women in Siam are 


a eS eee 


36 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

illiterate, and they are even more superstitious than 
the men. Yet they have greater freedom than in 
most other non-Christian lands. Marriage is cus- 
tomary at a much earlier age than with Americans 
and Europeans, so that it is not uncommon for a 
Siamese girl of fourteen to be a wife and mother. 
But children are not pledged to marriage in infancy 
as they are in India, nor are women in Siam re- 
strained by caste or secluded in harems. They are, 
as a rule, the managers of their households, selling 
the products of their gardens in shops, and buy- 
ing the necessaries for the family use. Women of 
the markets and villages have long enjoyed this 
freedom, but women of the higher classes were 
formerly more secluded. In recent years, however, 
so many of the daughters of prominent men have 
received a modern education, some of them having 
‘studied in foreign lands, that women of the best 
families now have far greater freedom than for- 
merly. Ladies appear at court functions and all 
manner of social affairs in a decidedly western 
manner. 

Polygamy, however, not being prohibited by 
Buddha, is deemed permissible and has been almost 
universal among men who could afford it. Only the 
first or chief wife is married with a ceremony. She 
is therefore the head of the household and usually 
enjoys the power that she exerts. The King has 
given the marriage ceremony greater importance 
than formerly, and early in his reign extolled mo- 





AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 37 
nogamy in many of his addresses and writings. But 
polygamy and concubinage are still prevalent and 
indeed are the rule rather than the exception, the 
King himself now setting the example. Women are 
not looked down upon as they are in some other 
countries. There used to be a saying that “the boy 
is a human being, but the girl is a buffalo,” but this 
does not represent the present attitude. Not only 
are the mission schools for girls crowded but girls 
are attending the government public schools in 
greater numbers than ever before. 


Celebrating a Funeral 


The funeral customs of the Siamese are unique. 
The bodies, except of the poorest, are cremated. A 
geomancer is consulted in order that a propitious 
time may be chosen. A date several weeks, some- 
times several months, distant is usually fixed. Dur- 
ing this interval the body is kept in the home in a 
sealed box in which quick-lime has been placed. 
When we called on the Governor of Lampang, we 
found the body of his wife in the main living-room 
of the house and were told that it had been there 
six months waiting for a favorable time for cre- 
mation. 

At the appointed time, the ceremonies are as 
elaborate and costly as the resources of the family 
will permit. People in moderate circumstances 
sometimes spend all their savings and run deeply 
into debt in order to pay these cremation expenses. 


Pm SL ee A A eA a aN Re Ate Sy ea ee 


38 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

NEST aeMs tases cakib Let Sati i hn et ah omen Sec 
Wealthy men and high officials make the cere- 
monies notable events. Numerous hired mourners 
are employed, and also numerous entertainers. 
Theatrical exhibitions are given and quantities of 
sweetmeats and liquors, as well as substantial food, 
are provided for all comers. The body is placed on 
a huge wheeled platform composed of inflammable 
materials and profusely decorated. At the conclu- 
sion of the ceremonies, it is drawn to the place of 
cremation and set on fire. 


Oriental vs. Occidental Manners 


The Siamese take time to be polite. We grate- 
fully remember their goodness to us. Princes and 
people showered hospitalities upon the strangers 
from the West, not because of any supposed merit 
in us, but because of our connection with mission- 
aries. A merchant in Utradit sent us his own horses 
for a week’s journey. The Governor of Prae Province 
gave us his private elephants for an eight days’ trip 
through the forest. Buddhist monks hospitably 
welcomed us to their temple grounds. Toiling 
carriers never complained and never deserted. We 
took ten thousand ticals for the mission treasurer 
in the north. That sum meant as much to those 
poor Siamese laborers as $50,000 would mean to 
American workmen. There were sixty-five port- 
ers in our caravan, all strangers to us, and there 
were only two of us white men and our wives. Our 
carriers knew that we had the money, for the united 








AN INTERESTING ORIENTAL LAND 39 





strength of two of them was required to hoist each 
of the four money boxes on to the elephants in the 
morning and to lower them and carry them into 
our tent at night. We traveled much of the time 
through a remote region, camping at night far from 
the habitations of men. And yet we slept in per- 
fect security, and we delivered that money to its 
intended treasurer without the loss of a tical. 

“Who is master?” our cook was overheard ask- 
ing about me. ‘He is the father of all the mission- 
_ aries,” was the reply, “and he is going up the river 
to see them.” “Oh, then,” said the cook with a sigh 
of relief, “he won’t kick me or curse me.” When 

we bade him good-bye a few weeks later, he con- 
fided to a friend: “Master must be a very holy 
man, for he has not beaten me nor thrown a bottle 
at me yet.” We felt ashamed as we reflected that 
ordinary decency in a foreign traveler could excite 
such surprise; but we felt gratified that the Ameri- 
can missionaries in Siam have such a reputation 
for justice and humanity that any one who was 
known to be connected with them was presumed to 
be a gentleman. 


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a" ie oe ee Pa ier ey is adhe im 


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), je “pin DOE ea aa ta Hs 7 yy 
{ y he iti s' , 
Hee, ey aby 
1 ik oy ae 4 ne 


\ i if 
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fit Bs 


. wh 


yi Ree) 


SS 


A ipsa are ores 

Se et Ih ape: Tesi ana a 

Sees a mph way siiie A aa E 
eat! 9 ae awed oh sight ld ? sere 

Bh AAR 


ff 
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hi vi. . £ ss 
4 i= 

oF a7 ‘ * 
Lie iS aA ; 0 a 


ie “ ale 3 wi | ue: Uy as eae: 7 
rail ak hh sli ey ‘ited Be " igh 7 
iG Kiki Bi if t is chal Bay te 1 

a, ‘Haat 


So Ty Cee 


a 1 i . why , Gil Ps ae 7 
“th: Wie pis he if ‘Artal ; 
NP Ae 


f ayer ? 





Progress and Problems 











BVA CR 
ih, Ne cA \ 
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Lik Whe 
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ba¥is apn 


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CHAPDERS Il 
PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 


When one considers the tropical climate, the pro- 
lific soil, the waters teeming with fish, and the re- 
sultant ease of life and lack of economic pressure, 
one marvels, not that the Siamese are backward, 
but that they are so forward. In China, Korea and 
the Philippines, there are improvements where the 
foreigners have made them, but in far inland Prae, 
the Lao Governor sent his carriage to us for a 
drive, and we opened our eyes when we saw an 
equipage with rubber tires, shining wheels, luxur- 
ious upholstery, handsome harness and liveried coach- 
man. In Chiengmai, we were driven for hours over 
roads which were an amazement and a delight after 
the ridges and hollows which were euphemistically 
called roads in China. At Pitsanuloke, 250 miles 
from Bangkok, the neat whitewashed picket fences 
lining the river for more than a mile, the well kept 
grounds of the public buildings, the comfort of the 
Siamese Club, and the residence of the officials 
would greatly surprise a traveler who had expected 
to find a village of barbarians in this interior region 
of Siam. At Ke Kan, where we stopped for the 
night, there is not a single foreigner, but we strolled 
for quite a distance on the level, beautifully-shaded 
streets along the river bank. We saw a sign bear- 
ing the word “Post-office” in English, Siamese and 
Chinese. 


41 





42 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





One Sunday, after a weary ride on elephants, we 
camped near a hamlet in the heart of a mighty jun- 
gle, about as far from civilization, one might im- 
agine, as it would be easy to get. But in the police 
station we found a telephone connecting with the 
telegraph office in Chiengmai, so that although we 
were on the other side of the planet from New York 
and 600 miles in the interior of “Farther India,” we 
could have flashed a message to any point in Europe 
or America. July 16, 1883, was the date of Siam’s 
first telegraph line. Now there are 3,500 miles of 
wire, and cable connection with the outside world by 
way of Penang, Moulmein and Saigon. Telephones 
are innumerable. The Government postal system, 
inaugurated in 1881, now extends all over the coun- 
try, and in the correspondence of many years with 
missionaries in various parts of Siam, letters have 
seldom miscarried. 

The police stations are neat white buildings in 
grounds that are usually adorned with flower beds 
and potted plants. In the capital one might expect 
such things, but we are writing of what has been 
done in distant interior towns by the Siamese them- 
selves. A new system of accounting and auditing 
has brought order into the hitherto hopelessly con- 
fused finances of the country. A Bureau of Forestry 
has stopped the prodigal waste of the magnificent 
timber lands. Legal procedure has been reformed, 
so that an accused man can obtain justice in the 
courts, Prince Rabi, who headed the Department of 





PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 43 





Justice from 1897 to 1910, was an able official of en- 
lightened mind. In 1908 the penal code was pub- 
lished in Siamese, French and English. We jour- 
neyed far in Siam, and everywhere life and prop- 
erty appeared as safe as in America. The prisons 
were being remodeled. We inspected one in north- 
ern and one in southern Siam, calling without pre- 
vious notice, and found clean, well-fed prisoners in 
roomy, well-ventilated wards. 

A royal decree, dated February, 1899, made Sun- | 
day a legal holiday, and directed that on it all gov- 
ernment offices should be closed and all business 
suspended. The reasons were not religious, but the 
fact is interesting. The law is not well observed, 
but neither are similar laws in America and Europe. 
Since 1894 an electric light plant has illuminated the 
King’s palace. The Siam Electricity Company is 
doing a thriving business and advertises power for 
manufacturing motors. Many of the steam rice 
mills of the city have their own electric plants, as 
have also the Bangkok Dock Company, two forts, 
several vessels and the navy yard. 


Development of Modern Transportation 


Long ago a few missionaries brought bicycles to 
aid them in touring. The Siamese were keenly inter- 
ested, and when in 1896 an American dentist im- 
ported several wheels to sell, they were quickly 
bought. During the author’s visit, there were 3,000 
wheels in Bangkok alone. A former Minister of the 


44 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Interior was president of a bicycle club of 400 mem- 
bers. Princes and government officials made runs 
into the country. In hundreds of towns wheels are 
to be seen. Chiengmai is said to have more bicycles 
in proportion to the population than any other city 
in the country, and when we left Lampoon the elders 
of the church accompanied us several miles on 
American bicycles. In recent years automobiles 
have arrived, and they are rapidly displacing bicycles 
in the capital and wherever else there are passable 
roads. As in America, eagerness to use automobiles 
has led people to demand better roads, and every 
year sees marked increase in their number and 
length. The poorer people still ride bicycles, but 
Siamese and Chinese who can afford cars, and some 
who cannot afford them, ride in automobiles. A 
street horse-car line in Bangkok, six miles in length, 
constructed in 1889, was changed in 1892 to an elec- 
tric trolley, which proved so successful that other 
lines have been built. 

Toward the end of the nineteenth century railway 
building was begun. Several railroads are now in 
operation. In addition to a narrow-gauge line from 
Bangkok to Paknam and a broad-gauge of 163 
miles from Bangkok to Korat, there are trunk lines 
from Bangkok northward to Chiengmai and south- 
ward to the Federated Malay States and Singapore. 
These through lines were projected many years ago, 
but financial and other difficulties were serious. 
Railway building is not easy anywhere, especially 


eee ee areas IP Oa a 


PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 45 
iaslhed kG CE iN a hala lalate ee Maa 
new lines in a tropical country. The construction 
of the northern line might have been delayed in- 
definitely if the Shan rebellion of 1902 had not rude- 
ly reminded the Government that its valuable ter- 
ritory in the north might be seriously jeopardized 
long before a Siamese army could march six hun- 
dred miles over a roadless country, or be poled in 
boats up a shallow river. After that, construction 
was pushed with all speed. The tedious river jour- 
ney of six weeks from Bangkok to Chiengmai, 
which once took Dr. Wilson 100 days, is now cut 
down to twenty-six hours. The journey of 732 miles 
from Penang to Bangkok which, prior to June, 1922, 
was a matter of several weeks, is now easily made in 
thirty-six hours on a train which carries a sleeping-- 
car with a bathroom. A handsome main station has 
been built in Bangkok and the King has ordered the 
bridging of the Menam so that travelers from the 
south will no longer be compelled to cross the river 
in rowboats, often at night, but can be brought into 
the heart of the city. Everywhere tickets, signs 
and notices are printed in English and Siamese. 
The resultant changes can easily be imagined. Rail- 
way trains break up isolation, bring knowledge of 
other communities, open distant markets, provide 
new appliances, develop additional wants, dispel 
many superstitions, and thus tend to revolutionize 
the hitherto narrow lives of a people. And now the 
airplane has brought its contribution to intercom- 
munication. There is an aviation field in Bangkok 





46 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





and airplane service between the city and distant 
centers. 


Foreign Trade 


Siamese exports for the year ending 1924 touched 
the high-water mark, 202,000,000 ticals, an increase 
of 32,000,000 ticals over the preceding year and more 
than double the exports in 1921, which were only 
90,000,000 ticals. The chief item was rice, 1,300,000 
tons and 70% of the total value of the exports. The 
second item was tin ore, and then followed teak, 
cattle, hides, salt, fish, pepper, copra, rubber, and a 
few other minor articles, such as bones of tigers and 
elephants, shells of turtles, skins of armadillos, and 
. birds’ nests so highly valued by the Chinese. In the 
same year, 1923-1924, Siamese imports were valued 
at 150,000,000 ticals, so that there was a balance of 
52,000,000 ticals in her favor. Cotton goods formed 
one-quarter of these imports, and then came a mis- 
cellaneous list of railway materials, machinery of 
various kinds, 452 automobiles, 75 airplanes, num- 
erous motorboats, etc. 


Currency Reform 


Siamese currency was formerly in a chaotic con- 
dition. Four silver coins of varying value were in 
circulation—the Siamese tical, the India rupee, the 
Chinese “Mexican dollar,” and the Straits (Singa- 
pore) dollar. The late King ended this confusion by 
a decree making the tical legal tender throughout 


Saeco ee ee eee ee eee eg ee abaliniias 


PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 47 
Siam, and on his birthday, September 12, 1901, the 
Government began to issue paper currency in notes 
of five, ten, twenty, a hundred and a thousand ticals. 
Since the Government does not guarantee the value 
of the silver tical on a gold basis, its actual value at 
a given time is determined by the silver bullion it 
contains. As the price of the metal fluctuates in the 
world’s markets, like that of most other commodi- 
ties, the exchange rate of the tical has varied from 
twenty-seven to forty-three cents, the latter being 
the rate at this writing. 


Making Education Possible 


An educational department of the Government was 
organized in 1892. Free public schools have been 
opened all over the land. Several that we visited had 
good buildings, foreign desks and numerous maps, 
although the teachers were usually inferior to those in 
mission schools. The late King issued an imperial 
decree co-ordinating all the local temple schools with 
the public educational system and placing them under 
the supervision of Prince Vijinyana. A compulsory 
education act was announced in 1891. It has not been 
strictly enforced in some parts of the Kingdom, and 
the instruction in most of the public schools is still 
rather primitive. But, as the American Minister said, 
“Whatever may be the subjects taught at first, or what- 
ever the quality of teaching may be, this movement pro- 
vides, if not for every hamlet of from ten to twenty 
families, at least for every town throughout the whole 


48 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


country, a school house already established. And this 
in itself is a factor toward a national system of educa- 
tion the value of which can hardly be overestimated.” 

The younger Siamese are eager to learn, and they not 
only flock to the mission schools but numbers of the 
more ambitious go to Europe. The famous English 
schools and universities usually have a few Siamese 
students. At this writing about forty Siamese students 
are enrolled in American educational institutions, a 
large proportion being in the great technical schools. 
It is significant that Siamese students abroad have no 
difficulty in maintaining equality with foreigners in the 
class room. Mr. Frederick Verney says that when the 
first ones came to the famous Harrow School in Eng- 
land, the Head Master said to him: “You are trying 
an extraordinary experiment in sending young Si- 
amese to Harrow and you are wonderfully sanguine 
in supposing that they can adapt themselves to our 
public school life.” But shortly before his death he 
spoke of the remarkable success they had achieved, 
and said that there was not a master at Harrow who 
would notgladly welcome them to his house. 


A Great Record for a Royal House 


Much of the credit for the introduction of these 
and other conveniences of modern civilization be- 
longs to the late King, who was a man of public 
spirit and strong mind and who was ably supported 
by like-minded cabinet ministers. His successor, 





PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 49 


the present King, has continued his predecessor’s 
progressive policy. He had an unusual equipment 
when he ascended the throne at the death of his 
father October 23, 1910. He soon began to put his 


- modern ideas into effect. He felt that the vital need 


of his people was to be stirred out of their physical 
and mental sloth and indifference and to be given 
a stronger national consciousness. To this end, he 
made many addresses, published numerous messages 
and exhortations, promulgated new laws, developed 
the educational system, and organized the young 
men of the country into a patriotic organization 
which united the features of a Boy Scout Move- 
ment and a National Guard and to which he gave the 
name of “Wild Tigers.” The army has been de- 
veloped and the Siamese are taking great pride in 
it. It is, of course, small from a western viewpoint, 
but it is considerable for Siam and it is absorbing a 
large part of the national revenues. Thirty thousand 
men are in arms and seventy thousand are in re- 
serve. 

Although the years that the King spent in Eng- 
land, when Crown Prince, had familiarized him with 
Christianity and although he has been friendly to 
missionaries, he feels that Buddhism is the his- 
toric religion of Siam; that the King, as the heredi- 
tary and ex-officio head of both State and Church, 
should be loyal to it; and that as the national faith, 
with numerous temples and well-nigh innumerable 
priests and monks, it is an effective instrument 


50 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


ready at hand for his program of nationalization. 
He has therefore tightened up the religious as well 
as the military and educational life of his people all 
along the line. He decreed that the Buddhist calen- 
dar, dating from Gautama’s supposed attainment of 
Nirvana, 543 B.C., should be used instead of the 
Gregorian calendar which his father had adopted in 
1889. 

Like some American politicians of the present 
day, he proclaimed everywhere the duty of “one 
hundred per cent patriotism” as a necessity for a 
nation that is to be respected by the world and pro- 
tected from the encroachments of other nations. 
The King’s efforts to strengthen Buddhism are illus- 
trated in a speech to the Wild Tigers in which he 
said: 


“In each group or nation of men there must 
be a governor to take care of the people and 
there must be some one to teach them to do 
good, like Jesus, a Buddha or a Mohammed. 
The work of these men we call religious. Re- 
ligions are sign posts to tell the people how to 
walk in the good way. All the religions con- 
template the same effects. People must believe 
in religion. The Siamese people, born in the 
Buddha religion, must believe in it. But some 
people at the present time think that they are 
free, that they may formulate their own re- 
ligious ideas, the idea for example that it is not 
right to steal if you get caught, but that it is all 
right if you are not caught. People who have 
thoughts like these are men without religion 


a 


PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 51 


ee 


and therefore without goodness. A man can- 
not construct a religion for himself. Religion 
is a thing that has taken many thousands of 
years to work out. The man who thinks he can 
construct a religion for himself is a fanatic. I 
have examined all the religions myself and I be- 
lieve the Buddha religion to be the best. There- 
fore I believe in the Buddha religion. I know 
about the Christian religion better than some 
foreigners do because I was educated in Europe 
where I studied Christianity and passed an ex- 
amination and got first honors in it. Next Sun- 
day I will explain about the Christian religion.” 


The awakening national and religious spirit, while 
not affecting the freedom of the missionaries, has 
naturally stiffened the attitude of the priestly and 
military classes and made the task of the mission- 
aries somewhat more difficult ; but it is undoubtedly 
benefiting the Siamese in many ways and it may 
well challenge our respect. It is surely better for 
a people to develop loyalty and self-reliance than it 
is to remain sunk in a slough of indolence and 
apathy. Even opposition is better than indifference. 

Some of the measures which the King has pro- 
moted were enumerated in a reply that he made to 
a congratulatory address by the princes and officials 
of the realm. Among them he referred to a family 
name law, supplying the common lack of surnames 
and thus promoting family integrity, the lessening 
of the liability of people to compulsory labor, the 
limiting of the liberty of private citizens to buy 


ee 


52 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 
He nemmeena a ARNSPOME Tl Wiese ree D Le as Dalam RE eee LO, 


weapons for criminal purposes, the restriction of the 
sale of morphine and cocaine, the construction of 
railways, the reclaiming of large tracts of land 
which had been rendered valueless by sea-water, 
and the adoption of preventive measures against 
contagious diseases. It is interesting to note that 
in connection with his reference to this last sub- 
ject the King said: 


“We take this opportunity to return thanks 
to all persons who have assisted in establishing 
hospitals in various parts of the country, in- 
cluding also the American missionaries who 
have joined in this charitable work by estab- 
lishing a leper hospital.” 


He added: 


“We should consider the happiness of the 
many before the comfort of the few. Those 
among you who are officials should understand 
that you have responsibilities, as the duties en- 
trusted to your care are for the maintenance of 
the integrity and prosperity of the Kingdom. 
Do not waste time in seeking personal benefit. 
Seeking and thinking of personal benefit only 
lead the mind astray and create ambitions in 
undue directions. By devoting your best at- 
tention to the performance of your duties in 
the best manner and keeping your ambition 
within proper bounds everything would go well 
and you would be happy in mind. There is an- 
other matter to which I trust everyone of you 
has given a careful consideration. It is whether 
personal conduct is distinct from official con- 
duct. We are of the opinion that it would be 





PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 53 


difficult to separate them, because it is the char- 
acteristic of us Siamese to look up to our elders 
and try to imitate them in whatever they do. 
This characteristic makes personal conduct one 
of greatest importance and it becomes the duty 
of every official in the government service to be 
careful so that people may not be able to say 
that the King employs men of base character. 
Endeavor everyone of you to convince the peo- 
ple and lead them to say that the King likes to 
employ only those who are of good character. 
This will redound to your own credit and also 
command the respect of other nations.” 


This is certainly wholesome advice for officials 
everywhere. 

Other outstanding achievements may be noted. A 
really splendid marble Throne Hall, that was begun 
in the preceding reign, has been completed. A gov- 
ernment irrigation bureau has formulated extensive 
plans to bring water to the broad areas which have 
hitherto been parched and arid in the dry season, 
and a tract of 600 square miles has already been 
brought “under water” so that it can be success- 
fully cultivated. Effort is being made to improve 
the quality and yield of various fruits and grains. 
Prince Y. Sanitwongre is active in promoting this 
effort. A Red Cross Society, under the presidency 
of Prince Nagor Svargara, a half brother of the 
King, is actively at work. It has inaugurated a pub- 
lic health nursing service in Bangkok and has 
brought about the completion of the Chulalongkorn 


54 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Memorial Hospital which, in an imposing modern 
plant, commemorates the great King who wisely 
ruled Siam for forty-two years. Prince Songkla, 
another half brother of the King, who took courses 
in public health and hygiene in England and at Har- 
vard University, is leading in the work of sanita- 
tion. A water supply system, installed in 1912, has 
improved public health by lessening the epidemics 
of disease which were caused or aggravated by the 
polluted drinking water of former years. A police 
emergency hospital, a Pasteur Institute, an asylum 
for the insane, a hospital for lepers, and a maternity 
hospital have been established; and the Royal Med- 
ical College, with the generous assistance of the 
Rockefeller Foundation, is being developed into a 
thoroughly modern institution. 


But There Are Problems 


All this, if left without qualification, might give a 
wrong impression, for foreign civilization is as yet 
chiefly a veneer with a weak basis in character. The 
real life of the people has not been so essentially 
modified as their modern improvements might lead 
one to suppose. The King is undoubtedly an en- 
lightened and progressive monarch and he has a few 
capable men who sympathize with his views and 
actively assist him in executing them. Notable 
among these were Prince Damrong, a half brother 
of the present King’s father and long the efficient 
Minister of the Interior; the late Prince Deva- 


OO eee 


PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS Np 
wongse, the intelligent Minister of Foreign Affairs ; 
several of the commissioners and nobles, and the 
diplomatic representatives in foreign capitals. But | 
His Majesty and his best officials are far in ad- 
vance of the rest of the nation. There is no middle 
class to give that substantial support to reform — 
movements which have been the salvation of Eng- 
land and America. There are practically but two 
classes, the high and the low. The forward move- 
ment has come from above, instead of from beneath 
as in Europe, and it has not penetrated much be- 
low the surface of the nation as a whole, except 
where the missionaries have been at work. The 
King is trying to fasten the fruits of Christian civil- 
ization to the dead tree of Buddhism. The effort | 
should not be criticised. It is well meant, and it is | 
beneficial as far as it goes. It is doing much to open | 
up Siam to the influence of the outside world. 

But true civilization cannot rest upon an unstable 
foundation in morals, Home and society are what 
one might expect where polygamy and concubinage 
are openly recognized. Missionaries experienced 
great difficulty in convincing the first native Chris- 
tians that social vice is anything more than a venial 
sin. Schools for girls have to be unceasingly watched 
and a majority of cases of discipline in the church 
are for violating the seventh commandment. There 
are no laws regulating divorce, so that families are 
easily broken up, and the maintenance of a high 
level of home life is very difficult. 





56 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





While public drunkenness is not conspicuous, 
there is considerable drinking, and the “Spirit 
Farmer,’ who has the government concession for 
the manufacture and sale of liquor, is a mighty man 
in every community. To the shame of Christian na- 
tions be it said, Scotch whiskey, French brandy and 
Australian beer are everywhere. We saw rows of 
foreign bottles in the shops of the remotest towns, 
and in Bangkok we read the English sign: “Place 
for the Drinking of the Delightful Juice.” Some of 
the Siamese nobles who were educated abroad have 
learned not only European manners, but European 


_ intemperance, and one of the highest judges of the 


land died, it is said, as a result of the excessive 
drinking which he began in England. 

Cigarettes and betel nuts are generally used, not 
only by men but by women and children. The to- 
bacco is mild and is smoked very slowly. Our car- 
riers in the jungle would take two or three puffs 
and then thrust their cigarettes into holes in the 
lobes of their ears. There the cigarettes would re- 
main for half an hour or more, when one would be 
relighted, puffed a few times, and then returned to 
the ear. Sometimes our men would carry three 
half-consumed cigarettes at once, one in each ear 
and one at the top of the ear, as an American clerk 
carries a pen. The betel nut, chewed with a little 
tobacco, lime and an aromatic leaf, stains the teeth 
and lips in a way that is unpleasant to a foreigner, 
but the dark-red color is highly prized by the Siam- 








PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 57 


ese. White teeth in a girl were formerly regarded 


as a sign that she was kept by a dissolute white 


man; but the influence of the mission schools is in- 
creasing the number of Christian girls and women 
who have natural teeth and lips. 

Opium-smoking is not common except among the 
Chinese, but gambling is the national vice. Every) 
village has its gambling hall, and the larger cities 
many of them. Although there is a law against it, 
a license to gamble may be obtained without serious 
difficulty. In connection with cremation ceremonies 
it is customary to take out a license good for three 
days. Like spirit farming, the exclusive right to 
conduct a gambling place is a government conces- 
sion, so that the vice has direct official patronage. 
There is no attempt at concealment. The gambling 
hall is usually the largest and most conspicuous 
building in a town, and every evening a big drum 
or an orchestra announces the beginning of the 
play. A free theatrical entertainment outside 
usually adds to the attraction, and frequently the 
whole population assembles. In our travels through 
the country, we often walked about the villages 
where we stopped for the night, and, as a rule, we 
found the crowd, children as well as adults, in or 
about the gambling resort. It is painfully signifi- | 
cant that sixty per cent of the government revenue | 
comes from the spirit, opium and gambling farms. | 
Truly has this been called “a policy of death,” a 


58 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





drawing upon the physical life blood and the moral 
stamina of the people. 

The Government is not indifferent to the injurious 
effect of the widespread passion for gambling. That 
great missionary, the late Rev. Dr. Eugene P. Dun- 
lap, made earnest representations on the subject to 
the late King, and met with sympathetic response. 
A royal decree cancelled some of the concessions, 
and decrees of the present King have been directed 
against the evil throughout the country. The dif- 
ficulties, however, have been great. Under the old 
treaties with European nations, Siam could not 
raise her low customs duties without their consent, 
and as that consent could not be secured, the Gov- 
ernment felt obliged to depend upon the gambling 
concessions to make up its necessary revenue. The 
spectacle of a non-Christian government hampered 
in dealing with vice by the failure of alleged Chris- 
tian governments to permit it to raise its import 
tax was humiliating to all Christian people who 
knew the facts. It was not until the recent ratifica- 
tion of the revised treaties that Siam obtained 
greater freedom in this matter. 

Another difficulty lay, and still lies, in the general 


' lack of banks outside the capital. When the vil- 
lager or peasant farmer earns money, he has no 


place to keep it. His bamboo hut has no locks or 
bolts. So the money is on his person when he goes 
with his neighbors to the gambling booth. He is 
therefore easily tempted to indulge his natural pas- 


EOE OEE EEE EO EOE EEEEEEOEEOEOEOEOOEOEE EE EO EO EE EEE EEE EEE avo 





PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 59 


sion for games of chance. Dr. William H. Beach of 
Chiengrai tells of a man who had received twenty 
ticals in advance payment on a house he had con- 
tracted to build and was going to use this money 
to take his boy to the government school at Chieng- 
rai. But the night before he decided that he could 
add considerably to his twenty ticals if he were to 
gamble with it. He lost it all, and when he got 
home told his son that he would have to walk to 
Chiengrai, begging his way as best he could, if 
he desired to go to school. The boy, undaunted, 
set out the next morning, and walked the long dis- 
tance to Chiengrai. He was not going to allow his 
father’s carelessness to cheat him out of an edu- 
cation, 


How Christianity Can Help Siam 


We studied Siam as a friend, not as a critic, and 
we came to the conclusion that the root difficulty 
in Siam’s social and political condition lies in the 
fact that progressive ideas are not supported by any | 
considerable body of intelligent Christian character | 
and opinion among the people, who, as a rule, are | 
a century behind their ruler. This radical defect is | 
precisely the one that Christianity is fitted to meet, 
since it directly leads to the development of men 
whose character is the bulwark of the state. Mis- 
sionary work, therefore, is the hope of Siam. It 
is introducing into Siam the particular element that 
is most needed. It has not only brought to the 


60 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Siamese the printing press, modern schools, modern 
medicine, modern science, modern inventions, but 
has brought those great reconstructive truths which 
exalt ideals and transform character. The writings 
of Buddhism contain no power to enable man to 
put their precepts into effect. Christianity alone 
brings a Gospel which, in the words of St. Paul in 
Romans 1:16, is “the power of God unto salvation 
unto every one that believeth.” Siam therefore has 
no better friends, no truer benefactors than the mis- 
sionaries who are the ambassadors of this Gospel. 


Siam and Western Nations 





i ‘anor pai 
eee Nae Se ee ep | ay es bie 
Vito TR tle ee, 
cats Te. ae = 
i g vig le, oP: 
ne Nita: 
? 


Deipectitgeak’ to 


~?. 


a yy 
pnd as han! ae, Lae 





CHAPTER III 
SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 


Siam’s relations with other nations are hardly 
known outside of a limited circle, for they have not 
been given prominence in American and European 
newspapers. But they have caused her Government 
no small anxiety. The story is too long for detailed 
telling, but friends of the Siamese should know at 
least its salient features. It illustrates the plight of 
weak nations in a world that, unhappily, is still domi- 
nated, in international affairs, by self-interest and 
physical force, and it brings into clear relief the al- 
truistic contribution that America has made, not 
through her Government, but through her Christian 
men and women. 

Siam’s foreign relations have been handled by 
wise and able men. We have referred on other 
pages to the late King, in whose long reign some 
diplomatic questions became acute. He was readily 
approachable by an accredited foreign visitor, and, 
at the request of the American Minister, at once 
granted audience to the author. We of the West 
are apt to picture an Oriental monarch arrayed in 
magnificent robes, seated on a golden throne, wear- 
ing a glittering crown and holding a bejewelled scep- 
tre. But when we were ushered into the spacious and 
handsomely furnished audience chamber of the Royal 


61 





62 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Palace, we saw a man whose attire was that of a 
European gentleman, who wore no diadem and sat 
on no throne, who cordially greeted us in excellent 
English and as frankly as if he had been an Amer- 
ican President instead of an Asiatic Sovereign. 
There are some rulers who need the aid of pag- 
eantry to make up for their lack of royal qualities, 
but to as marked a degree as any man we ever saw, 
the Sovereign of Siam was “every inch a king.” In 
some other countries we had found monarchs whose 
weakness or bigotry was retarding the development 
of their people; but in Siam we found a King who 
was leading his people to higher levels of life. 
This progressive ruler was ably supported by a 
strong Cabinet, whose outstanding members were 
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Devawongse, 
and the Minister of Home Affairs, Prince Damrong, 
men of diplomatic experience and personal char- 
acter. These skilful pilots steered the ship of state 
as well as they could in the stormy sea of inter- 
national affairs, and the present King and his ad- 
visers are following the same careful course. 


Opening of the Outside Door 


Siam’s first official contacts with European nations 
date back to 1664 when the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, under authority of the Dutch Republic, nego- 
tiated a treaty regarding trade. We need only 
mention this in passing, and also subsequent treaties 
which established diplomatic relations with such 


SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 63 


European governments as Denmark and the Han- 
seatic Towns in 1858; Portugal in 1859; Holland in 
1860; Prussia in 1862; Belgium, Italy, Norway and 
Sweden in 1868. More important have been Siam’s 
relations with the great powers. 


Germany and Siam 


Prior to the World War, the Germans were quick 
to see and seize the opportunity for trade. By their 
purchase of the steamships running between Hong 
Kong and Bangkok and Singapore and Bangkok, 
the only important lines regularly connecting Siam 
with foreign ports passed into their hands, so that 
whereas eighty per cent. of the shipping entering 
Bangkok from foreign ports was formerly British, 
eighty per cent became German. Articles “made in 
Germany” were abundant in Siamese shops, and 
Germans flocked in to develop the interests of the 
Fatherland. But Germany’s plans were commercial 
rather than political. Her defeat in the World War 
eliminated her for a time, but her shipping is now 
appearing again in Asiatic waters. 

Siam’s reasons for entering the War have been 
variously represented. Public opinion regarding the 
issue, as understood by the Allied and Associated 
Powers, could hardly have been the reason since 
there is little public opinion in Siam outside of 
governmental circles. An autocratic government in 
Asia, however enlightened, could not have been in- 
terested in overthrowing an autocratic government 





64 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


in Europe; nor could an absolute monarchy have 
been eager to aid in “making the world safe for 
democracy.” It was indeed vitally concerned in the 
safety of small nations, but Siam was in no danger 
from Germany. The inner diplomatic history of the 
War has not yet been written. Perhaps it never 
will be. Important matters are usually arranged in 
unofficial private conversations, and, as a rule, offi- 
cial record is made only of those matters which the 
government concerned is quite willing to have pub- 
lished. What is known is that the Allied Powers 
strained every nerve to array all possible nations 
against Germany, and that they were not disposed 
to overlook a country like Siam whose bountiful rice 
harvests could strengthen their food supply, whose 
ports might be used by German warships, and whose 
capital might become a center of German intrigue. 
It is reasonable too to conjecture that Siam, like 
some other nations, found a neutral position em- 
barrassing and difficult to maintain, that she was 
influenced by the fact that the two most powerful 
allied nations, France and Great Britain, were on 
her borders, had numerous warships handy, could 
make things exceedingly uncomfortable for her if 
she did not comply with their wishes, and would 
probably give her some greatly desired treaty ad- 
vantages if she did. 

At any rate, whatever the reasons, Siam on July 
22, 1917, openly joined the Allies by declaring war 
upon Germany and, as soon she could, sent soldiers 


SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 65 


to France. Of course they were too few to have an 
appreciable effect on the battle front, but they meant 
much to the Siamese, and the Siamese flag meant 
something to the Allied Powers, since it closed 
Siamese waters to German vessels and Siamese 
cities to German agents. When at the close of the 
War the Siamese soldiers came back, there was a 
remarkable demonstration of public joy. Public 
and private buildings in Bangkok were gaily deco- 
rated and enormous cheering crowds assembled. 
Rain had recently fallen, and the ground was muddy, 
but the excited throng cared not, for their beloved 
army had stood alongside the armies of powerful 
nations and had a right to share in the victory that 
had been won. 


France and Siam 


Relations with France have involved some per- 
plexing governmental questions. An extensive 
French possession in Indo-China has appeared quite 
as legitimate to Frenchmen as an extensive British 
possession in India has appeared to Englishmen. 
France has had few commercial relations with Siam, 
and, at the time of the writer’s visit, only two of the 
190 foreigners in Government employ were French. 
The ambitions of France have been distinctly poli- 
tical. As far back as 1787, the French negotiated a 
“treaty” with the King of Cochin-China, by which 
they obtained the Peninsula of Tourane and the 
Island of Pulu Condore. They soon extended their 


66 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


power over Anam and pressed toward the interior 
until they had occupied the whole of Cochin-China, 
Cambodia and all the territory east of the Me- 
kong River. In 1856, France followed Great Britain 
in securing extra-territorial rights for her sub- 
jects, and another “treaty” in 1862 gave legal 
color to her encroachments on Siamese territory. 
After many disputes and under a threat of bombard- 
ment, the King of Siam, October 3, 1893, was forced 
to sign a treaty which designated the Mekong 
River as the boundary between Siamese and French 
possessions, gave France all the islands in the river, 
and forbade Siam to fortify any point in or to 
send any armed force into a strip twenty-five 
kilometers wide on the west bank. Not content 
with this, France proceeded to take under her “pro- 
tection” the province of Luang Prabang in the 
north, although a considerable part of it lay on the 
Siamese side of the river. She even added a claim 
to a part of Nan province, on the ground that it had 
once been under “the local government” of Luang 
Prabang. Altogether, France appropriated over 
300,000 square miles in Indo-China, a territory a 
third larger than France itself. 

Another method of extending French influence 
was by enrolling as French protégés people in Siam 
who had come from other regions under French 
control, or who were the children or grandchildren 
of those who had been born there. Since there was 
a heavy immigration from Cambodia, Anam, Ton- 


SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 67 


quin and other lands of Indo-China, it will readily 
be seen what it meant to France to claim them and 
their descendants for three generations. Some Chi- 
nese from Hainan were also enrolled, and it has been 
charged that men who sought to escape taxes, or 
military service, or who wanted help in lawsuits, 
took out French papers in order to gain the power- 
ful support of priest and consul. In these ways 
France enrolled many people in Siam and thus 
gained a pretext for interference which she was not 
slow to utilize. A western power would probably 
have felt that it had half a dozen provocations to 
fight, but Siam well knew that war would result in 
subjugation. 

The Siamese Government, therefore, intimated 
that it was prepared to make further concessions in 
order to maintain peace. Almost anything appeared 
better than a continuance of an irritating situation 
or a war in which Siam would inevitably be crushed. 
Negotiations dragged wearily along, and more than 
once trouble appeared imminent. Finally, and large- 
ly through the skilful management of the American 
Mr. Edward H. Strobel, who had become Foreign 
Adviser to the King of Siam in March, 1904, a Con- 
vention was signed February 13, 1904, and a protocol 
June 29 of the same year. France got the coveted 
Luang Prabang on both sides of the Mekong, and 
also Krat, Bassac and Melonpey on the west bank, 
a vast region 8,000 square miles in extent. She also 
secured a voice in public improvements in the pro- 


68 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


vince of Korat and the appointment of a French 
legal adviser on the Siamese court of appeals in all 
cases affecting French subjects. Siam secured the 
abolition of the vexed neutral twenty-five kilometer 
zone, a settlement of the equally vexed registration 
of French protégés, a recognition of her court of 
appeal, a reduction in the jurisdiction of French 
courts in Siam, the French evacuation of Chanta- 
boon, and, in general, a feeling of relief that the 
perilous questions with her powerful aggressor 
were now so far settled that she could have a period 
of rest from outside interference. 

January 9, 1905, the flag of France was lowered 
at Chantaboon, where it had floated for twelve years, 
the French troops sailed away, and the flag of Siam 
was once more unfurled. The Siamese felt a little 
sore over losing more valuable territory, but on the 
whole they were better satisfied than Asiastic na- 
tions usually are after “treaties” with European 
powers. They were still further relieved by another 
treaty with France which was signed March 23, 
1907. This treaty ceded to France some more ter- 
ritory—the provinces of Battambong, Siemreap and 
Srisophon—but the French returned to Siam Dansai, 
Krat and the adjacent islands. Most gratifying of 
all to the Siamese, provision was made for waiving 
the extra-territorial rights of Asiatics who claimed 
to be French subjects or protégés, and for placing 
them under the jurisdiction of Siamese courts. At 
this writing, therefore, Franco-Siamese relations 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 69 


are better than for many years. February 14, 1925, 
another favorable treaty was signed. 


The French plans have been aided by the Roman 
Catholic Missions, which began with the arrival of 
some French priests in 1662. At the time of the 
author’s visit, there were two bishops, 66 churches, 
including a cathedral in Bangkok, 32,000 members, 
73 schools, a convent, a hospital and two colleges. 
French priests were scattered over the land. The 
French Government is not friendly to the Roman 
Catholic Church at home, but it prizes the help 
which its missionaries give to her political designs in 
the Orient. The latest accessible report, 1924, lists a 
Vicar Apostolic, 64 priests and 15 catechists.* 

Friends of Protestant Missions have learned from 
experience, not only in Siam but in Korea, Africa and 
Madagascar, that in so far as French colonial policy 
is influenced by Roman Catholic bishops, it is un- 
friendly to Protestantism. The venerable Dr. Mc- 
Gilvary of Chiengmai, on a trip to Luang Prabang, 
was not allowed to remain long enough to visit the 
few Christians there, and in spite of his age and 
weariness after a long and toilsome journey, he was 


1The Roman Catholic Church in America has hitherto done very lit- 
tle foreign missionary work in Asia, nearly all of the extensive missions 
of that Church being European. In recent years, however, American 
Roman Catholics have begun to interest themselves in this work. The 
Catholic Herald of August 16, 1924, announced that “The Fathers of the 
Society of St. Columban, Nebraska, have undertaken, at the special re- 
quest of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, a new mission in 
Siam. The missionaries were asked to take up the work in view of the 
fact that a large number of inhabitants of Siam are Chinese.” 


70 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


peremptorily ordered to leave at once. Hearing, in 
1907, that Mr. and Mrs. Park of Nan were contem- 
plating a tour east of the Mekong, the French 
Consul wrote to them that no “proselyting” would 
be permitted. 


Great Britain and Siam 


The British occupation of Burma on the north and 
northwest brought Siam into close relations with Great 
Britain. After several efforts the British negotiated a 
treaty of friendship and commerce in 1826. Another 
treaty in 1855 regulated England’s trade relations with 
Siam and secured extra-territorial rights for British 
subjects, so that they were under the sole jurisdiction 
of British consuls. A third treaty in 1883 gratified 
Siam by providing for the renunciation of some of 
these extra-territorial rights and the establishment of 
an international court for the trial of cases in which 
British subjects were involved. The present boundary 
between Siam and British Burma was agreed upon in 
1891, 

Great Britain has heavy interests in Siam—trading 
companies with enormous vested capital, large num- 
bers of British subjects, including many thousands of 
Burmese in the Lao States, and, what is a particularly 
sensitive point with England, the long, thinly settled 
and ill-protected frontier line of her vast Indian Em- 
pire. It is hardly conceivable that England would like 
to see France, by absorbing Siam, occupy her unde- 
fended and almost indefensible Indian frontier for a 


SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 71 


thousand miles and more. Several years ago, the Brit- 
ish Foreign Office hinted as much to France in connec- 
tion with the latter’s attempts on Luang Prabang. In 
some hidden way, perhaps an understanding that the 
Shan States west of the Mekong were to be recog- 
nized as British, England was persuaded to recognize 
French rights to the Shan districts east of the Me- 
kong. At any rate, in the Anglo-French Convention 
of January 15, 1896, both governments engaged that 
neither of them would, without the consent of the other, 
advance their armed forces into a region west of a 
line beginning west of Chantaboon and running irregu- 
larly northward to the Shan States. Lord Salisbury 
smoothly explained that “nothing in our present action 
would detract in any degree from the validity of the 
rights of the King of Siam to those portions of his 
territory which are not affected by the new agreement,” 
and that “we have selected a particular area because 
it is an area which affects our interest as a commercial 
nation.” Despite this declaration, the unpleasant fact 
remained that France could seize the entire eastern 
half of the Kingdom without violating the terms of 
this Convention. 

Great Britain’s political policy in relation to the 
Siamese Government has doubtless been influenced by 
the fact that she has so many exposed colonies of her 
own, which usually keep her well supplied with trouble- 
some questions, that she is not disposed to interfere 
with the plans of her continental rivals as long as they 
let her alone. She is therefore not likely to risk a col- 


ren nn oem enicree reaea et og 
72 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





lision for the sake of Siam; but for the protection of 
her own interests she undoubtedly prefers to have the 
integrity of Siam preserved as a buffer State. 

And yet the British have been and are good friends 
of Siam. They have sent expert advisers to aid the 
Siamese Government in various departments. British 
loans in 1905, 1907 and 1909 made possible the con- 
struction of Siam’s railways. Some funds were sub- 
scribed in Paris and Berlin, but the bulk came from 
London and the Government of the Federated Malay 
States. A fourth loan in 1922 financed Siam’s irriga- 
tion project. It may be said that these loans were to 
Britain’s advantage. Perhaps so, but the point is that 
Britain trusted Siam when no other government was 
disposed to do so and that this trust enabled the 
Siamese to make improvements that would otherwise 
have been beyond their reach. Moreover, while the 
British Government, as will presently be noted, was the 
first to demand extra-territorial rights for her subjects, 
it was the first to relinquish them and to trust its 
nationals and their properties to the protection of Siam- 
ese laws and courts. The principal banks in Bangkok 
are branches of the British Hong Kong and Shanghai 
Banking Corporation, opened in 1888, and the Char- 
tered Bank of India, Australia and China, opened in 
1893. The late king imbibed much of his broad, pro- 
gressive spirit from his English governess. The pres- 
ent king was educated first by an English tutor in 
Bangkok, Sir Robert Morant, and then in England 
(1893-1902). When Prince Damrong went to Europe 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 73 


in 1891 to study western educational methods, it was 
England that gave him most cordial welcome, and on 
his return to Siam, it was Sir Robert Morant who 
aided him in organizing the government educational 
system. 

It is not surprising therefore that the Siamese count 
the British their friends and that British prestige is 
high. 


Treaty Limitation on Import Dues 


Siam’s political need is an opportunity to work out 
her own problems, unembarrassed by outside interfer- 
ence. One of her serious perplexities grew out of the 
treaty of 1855 with her best friend, Great Britain. 
That treaty had limited import dues on foreign goods 
to three per cent. “The most favored nation” clause 
extended this provision to every other nation. When 
Siam sought to inaugurate administrative reforms, the 
limitation seriously hampered her. The decree on gam- 
bling, noted elsewhere, is but one of several illustra- 
tions which might be cited. It was manifestly unjust 
that the Government should be tied hand and foot by a 
commercial treaty made more than half a century ago 
when the situation was quite different. Siam wanted 
those early treaties readjusted to modern conditions. 
On one occasion, the King sent a Cabinet Minister, 
accompanied by Mr. Frederick Verney, then Counselor 
of the Siamese Legation in London, to ask European 
governments to permit her to control her taxes and 
the traffic in intoxicants. Mr. Verney said that he 


74 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


and his colleague got a cold reception. A small and 
distant nation, without military strength, has a poor 
chance of getting justice in dealing with the great 
powers of the world, especially when money interests 
are involved. 


Extra-Territoriality 


The extra-territorial rights of foreigners were an- 
other sore point with the Siamese. They had been legal- 
ized by the treaty with Great Britain in 1855 and that 
potent “joker” in most treaties which gives to each 
contracting party all the privileges accorded to “the 
most favored nation” had extended these rights to the - 
other western nations which concluded treaties with 
Siam. The Siamese quite naturally felt that the pres- 
ence of men who were not amenable to their laws and 
courts was a standing reflection upon them. Plans for 
improvements were sometimes blocked because a pro- 
posed street extension affected some old building which 
was owned by a European who made a great hue and 
cry if his premises were touched without an extor- 
tionate indemnity. Some crime was committed, and the 
Siamese found themselves helpless to punish the 
offender because he was under foreign protection. 
Indeed, it was to secure this very immunity from pun- 
ishment that some bad characters took out French 
certificates. 

Undoubtedly, this was a prime reason why the 
Siamese Government was so reluctant to allow foreign- 
ers to acquire absolute title to property. It trusted 





A FORD-LOAD OF SCHOOL GIRLS 





A RURAL CO! 





yREGATION OF CHRISTIANS 


= a) hee § 
Bry 7 ey 7 


a 
e 5 a 








SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 75 





the Protestant missionaries and cordially loaned or 
rented them land for a merely nominal sum, but it 
withheld title because sales to them would have to be 
made to the French. The missionaries and their Board 
in New York naturally desired to own the properties 
on which they had spent considerable sums for schools, 
hospitals and residences, but they did not press the 
matter because they knew the friendliness of the Gov- 
ernment and they did not wish to embarrass it by in- 
sisting upon privileges which, if granted to them, would 
have to be granted to other foreigners whose interests 
in Siam were less altruistic. In no other country in 
Asia has the Protestant missionary been regarded with 
greater friendliness than in Siam. In no other have 
more marked favors been shown to him or more influ- 
ence accorded to him. His life and property are safe 
and judges and officials are not only more intelligent 
than formerly, but they are, as a rule, the personal 
friends of the missionaries. There was, therefore, no 
particular reason to fear injustice from them. Extra- 
territorial rights are less vital to the interest of mission- 
ary work than they are popularly supposed to be. As 
one American expressed it: ““The missionary is largely 
dependent for safety upon the good will of the people 
anyway. If he has that, and he certainly has it in Siam, 
he does not need his extra-territorial privileges. If he 
does not have it, those privileges will not save him, as 
experience in China has painfully proved.” All that is 
really essential to him he possesses in his American 
citizenship, which is protected by the diplomatic and 


76 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


consular representatives of his country, independently 
of extra-territorial rights. 

That Siam is willing to listen to wise counsel is 
shown by her readiness to advise with experienced mis- 
sionaries and by her use of official foreign advisers. 
Years ago, she asked Lord Cromer of Egypt for advice 
in lessening the abuses of farming out taxes, and he 
recommended the appointment of Mr. Mitchell Innes 
as Financial Adviser. The appointment was promptly 
made, and Mr. Innes and his successors have done 
much to remedy administrative evils and to put Siam’s 
financial affairs on a sound basis. The King did not 
stop with this, but appointed a Legal Adviser to counsel 
him on general questions of state and relations to 
western nations. Mr. Rolin Jaequenyns was largely 
influential in this capacity for many years. Recent 
advisers have been Americans. Such able and wise 
men as Edward H. Strobel, Eldon R. James, Francis 
Sayre, and the present incumbent Courtenay Crocker, 
have given ample opportunity to propose reforms and 
have been a power for good. 


Treaties With America 


The desire of the Siamese to have more favorable 
treaties with western powers was warmly supported by 
the American Ministers. Diplomatic relations with the 
United States had begun with the treaty of 1833. In 
the treaty of 1856, it had shared in the extra-territorial, 
commercial and other rights which Siam had been 
forced to yield to European nations, “the most favored 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 77 





nation” clause carrying with it every privilege that 
any other government had ever obtained. The Hon. 
Hamilton King, a greatly beloved minister, who, after 
the exceptionally long service of fourteen years, died 
in Bangkok in 1912, earnestly advised the State De- 
partment in Washington to negotiate a new and more 
just treaty with Siam. He did not live to see his advice 
realized. Diplomatic wheels revolve slowly, especially 
when, as in America, there are frequent changes in ad- 
ministration and personnel. Mr. Eldon R. James, then 
Foreign Legal Adviser of the Siamese Government, 
and the Siamese Minister in Washington tactfully con- 
tinued their efforts, Mr. James personally visiting 
Washington. 

Finally, in 1921, to the profound gratification of all 
concerned, the long drawn out negotiations were 
brought to a happy issue. A new treaty was agreed 
to December 16, 1920. It was approved by the United 
States Senate, and the formal ratifications were ex- 
changed in 1921. In addition to important articles re- 
lating to commerce and navigation between the two 
countries, the treaty abolished the extra-territorial 
rights of American citizens, which Great Britain had 
relinquished for her citizens in 1883 and France in 
1907, and whose continuance for Americans had nat- 
urally been displeasing to the Siamese Government and 
occasionally placed American missionaries in an em- 
barrassing position inasmuch as practically all the 
American citizens in Siam are missionaries. Bearing 
more directly upon missionary work and making the 


78 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


treaty one of really essential importance are the articles 
which extended the property rights of American mis- 
sionaries and mission work. The former treaty pro- 
hibited foreigners from taking title to property in their 
own names in places more than twenty-four hours dis- 
tant from Bangkok by boat. Much of the mission 
property in Siam therefore had to be held under leases 
which were subject to revocation at the will of the Gov- 
ernment. While there was no serious trouble on this 
account, it was a relief to have the Siamese Government 
so cordially recognize, as it did in this treaty, that the 
time had come for a more satisfactory adjustment. The 
fiscal autonomy of Siam was also recognized in the 
treaty in ways very gratifying to the Siamese since it 
recognized Siam’s right to determine for herself what 
her import duties should be. 


What Has America To Give to Siam? 


First: Unselfish friendship. America does not seek 
a foot of Siamese territory, nor would it, if it could, 
jeopardize the integrity of Siamese possessions or the 
independence of the Siamese Government. Americans 
ardently desire that all the relations of America with 
Siam be based upon the Golden Rule of doing unto 
others as we would that others should do unto us. The 
influence of missionaries in promoting international 
friendship was illustrated in the treaty which was nego- 
tiated between Siam and the United States in 1856. Dr. 
William M. Wood, later Surgeon-General of the United 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 79 





States Navy, who accompanied the Embassy, wrote: 
“The unselfish kindness of the American missionaries, 
their patience, sincerity and truthfulness, have won the 
confidence and esteem of the natives, and in some de- 
gree transferred those sentiments to the nation repre- 
sented by the Missions, and prepared the way for the 
free and national intercourse now commencing. It was 
very evident that much of the apprehension the 
Siamese felt in taking upon themselves the responsi- 
bilities of a treaty with us would be diminished if they 
could have the Rev. Stephen Mattoon as the first 
United States consul to set the treaty in motion.” Mr. 
Mattoon, a missionary, was willing to take the office 
only until a successor could be appointed at Wash- 
ington. 

Thus Siam was peaceably opened by American mis- 
sionaries. The Regent in 1871 frankly stated this to 
the Hon. George F. Seward, then United States Consul 
General at Shanghai: “Siam has not been disciplined 
by English and French guns as China has, but the 
country has been opened by missionaries.” This friend- 
liness of the Siamese Government has not been inter- 
rupted sintce. 

Second: America offers to Siam fair trade. It 
has manufactured articles that Siam needs and the 
Siamese have products that we need. The exchange 
would be to mutual advantage. Already Siam values 
some of our manufactures. Strolling along the river 
bank one evening in Paknampo, we saw a Siamese 
busily at work on a sewing machine made in America. 





80 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Nearly five hundred of them are sold in Siam every 
year. Most of Siam’s bicycles and automobiles are 
of American make. In scores of homes and markets 
we saw American lamps, of which $40,000 worth 
were sold in a single year. We might add similar illus- 
trations regarding American flour, steam and electrical 
machinery, wire, cutlery, drugs and chemicals. More 
American products go to Siam than official statistics 
indicate, for most of them reach Siam through Chinese 
middlemen. One is glad that American goods are so 
superior that foreign firms find it to their advantage to 
handle them, but one is sorry that American business 
men do not wake up and take more direct interest in 
what could easily be made a great market. The Siamese 
prefer many of our manufactured goods, but our busi- 
ness men are allowing European nations to walk away 
with a trade which might be more largely ours. As it 
is, American trade relations with Siam are largely in- 
direct, and although there are a few agents, there is 
not an American business house in all Siam. If manu- 
facturers in the United States would heed the con- 
sular and diplomatic reports on this subject, they could 
develop a trade with Siam which would be profitable to 
them and helpful to the Siamese. 

Third: But the chief thing that the people of America 
have to offer the Siamese is an equal share in those 
blessings which we ourselves first received from Asia. 
Just as Siam has learned some things which we need 
to know, so we in turn have learned some truths which 
the Siamese need. Supreme among these is the knowl- 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 81 





edge that there is a wise, loving, personal God—a God 
who created the world, who made man, who governs 
the earth, and who regards men as His children. This 
God has revealed Himself to man in a Book which 
answers the profoundest problems of the human heart, 
and, above all, He has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to 
tell of His love and to show man how he may, by re- 
pentance and faith and the quickening of the Divine 
Spirit, attain eternal life. 

This idea of a Supreme Being is not simply for 
America but for the world. Indeed, God first revealed 
Himself in Asia. The Bible was written in Asia and 
Jesus lived and died there. And now, just as America 
sends ministers and consuls to represent her political 
friendship for Siam and corporations send business 
men to represent her trade, so the Church sends mis- 
sionaries to represent those higher truths which are 
for the larger blessing of men. We send them not 
because we regard the Siamese as inferiors, but because 
we regard them as men made like ourselves in the 
image of God and who have the same rights that we 
possess to the knowledge and love and care of God. 
We know that the Siamese need Christ because we 
need Him ourselves, and because we see that the 
Siamese lack those qualities which Americans lacked 
before they received the Gospel and which they lack 
now just to the extent that they fail to follow Christ. 
We are ashamed of those Americans who imagine that 
these blessings are for themselves alone and that they 
should not be given to other people, who think that it 


82 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 
is proper to send rifles to the Siamese and improper to 
send the Bible. 

Is it not a good work to heal the sick? To teach the 
young? To publish good books and periodicals? To 
tell men that there is a holy and loving God who will 
help them bear life’s burdens and save them from their 
sins? Is it not good to apply the principles of the Gos- 
pel of Christ to all the activities and relations of life? 
These things missionaries from America are doing in 
Siam. They do not interfere with any proper custom 
of the Siamese people. They are loyal to the Govern- 
ment. But recognizing the Siamese as our fellow- 
men who are heirs of the same inheritance, we simply 
desire, in a spirit of true brotherliness and Christian 
faith, to communicate to them those sublime truths 
which experience has shown to be for the temporal and 
eternal blessing of men. 

While America’s political and commercial relations 
with Siam have been small, her spiritual relations have 
been large. Details are given in another chapter, so 
that only mention may be made here of the fact that 
outside of the Legation staff and less than a dozen 
others, all of the more than 200 Americans in Siam are 
missionaries and their families. There are no other 
Protestant missionaries in the entire kingdom, except 
one agent of the American Bible Society, so that the 
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York 
is the main channel through which the people of Amer- 
ica are extending the hand of brotherhood to the 
Siamese. They are doing this through the educated 





SIAM AND WESTERN NATIONS 83 





Christian men and women whom they are maintaining 
in Siam and the gifts of over $200,000 annually which 
they are sending. This is done gladly and unselfishly, 
without expectation or desire of profit to themselves, 
but as a substantial evidence of the earnest and fra- 
ternal desire of the Christian people of Amreica for 
the welfare of Siam. 

The royal decree of a former King of Siam truly 
said: “Many years ago, the American missionaries 
came here. They came before any Europeans, and they 
taught the Siamese to speak and read the English lan- 
guage. The American missionaries have always been 
just and upright men. They have never meddled in the 
affairs of government nor created any difficulty with 
the Siamese. They have lived with the Siamese just 
as if they belonged to the nation. The Government of 
Siam has great love and respect for them, and has no 


fear whatever concerning them. When there has been | 
a difficulty of any kind, the missionaries have many | 
times rendered valuable assistance. For this reason | 
the Siamese have loved and respected them for a long | 
time. The Americans have also taught the Siamese | 


many things.” 

With fair treatment from other nations, and with 
her progressive King and Cabinet, her excellent for- 
eign financial and legal advisers, and the strong body of 
Protestant missionaries supplying ideals and forming 
character, Siam may fairly be expected to move along 
right lines of national progress. 





The Land of the Yellow Robe 





r).F. 











CHAPTER. iv 
THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 


The visitor quickly observes that yellow robed, 
shaven-headed monks are in evidence everywhere 
—on the streets of the cities, in the humblest ham- 
lets, and particularly on the rivers in the early 
mornings as they dexterously paddle along the 
shore in their tiny canoes, thanklessly accepting the 
spoonful of rice which the villagers count it a merit 
to give them. Every man from king to coolie must 
spend at least one rainy season in a monastery or 
be ostracised, so that it is no wonder that monks 
are numerous. 

Buddhism has taught the people to give largely 
for the support of religious institutions. The 
temples of Siam are more numerous and expensive 
than those of any other land we visited. Many of 
them literally blaze with overlaid gold and im- 
bedded precious stones. Constructed usually of 
brick and covered with mortar, they quickly de- 
teriorate in this land of heavy rains, destroying 
insects and rank, parasitic vegetation. There is 
great “merit” in building a new temple or rest 
house, but none in repairing one that someone else 
has built, which accounts for the number of crum- 
bling temples, and also for the many new ones 
which are springing up on every side. 


85 


Pigs le Fete PN, a ONE eae 
86 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

Statues of Buddha are simply innumerable— 
statues of all sizes, statues sitting and reclining, 
statues of wood, and iron, and stone, of marble, and 
bronze, and alabaster. In the “dim religious light” 
of the large temples, their huge figures (one is 145 
feet long and overlaid with thin sheets of pure 
gold), look down upon the worshipper with a sol- 
emn, majestic impassiveness, a timeless unmoved 
calm, which impresses even a western traveler and 
helps him to understand in some measure the awe 
which these vast statues excite in the minds of the 
people. 

A quaint legend, described by Dr. W. C. Dodd, 
adds interest, not unmingled with pathos, to the be- 
liefs of the Siamese, since it has led to an expecta- 
tion of another reincarnation of Buddha. According 
to Buddhist theology, myriads of ages ago a white 
crow laid five eggs. Earthquake, thunder and tor- 
nado enveloped and scattered them. Each was taken 
by a foster-mother and hatched. They became re- 
spectively Kahkoosuntah, Konahmanah, Kasappa, 
Kotama (afterward Gautama Buddha) and Ahrehyah 
Mettai. After living for a time as sons of the white 
crow, they were reborn in the upper world as water 
lilies or lotus. There they agreed that the lotus 
which first budded should be born on the earth as 
a Buddha to bless animals and men. First, Kah- 
koosuntah’s lotus budded and he became a Buddha 
for 5,000 years. His appearance was like gold. At 
the end of 5,000 years he entered Nirvana, or, as it 








THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 87 





is called in Siam, Nippan. After him came Konah- 
manah, like a jewel for 3,000 years. Then down 
came Kasappa, white as milk, for 2,000 years. 
Then the lotus of Ahreyah Mettai came into bud, 
but Kotama slyly swapped lilies with him and came 
down to earth. It is acknowledged that his nat- 
ural life was only eighty years, but it is claimed 
that he has merely entered upon the second stage 
of Nippan, of which there are three stages in all. 
The first he entered when he made the great re- 
nunciation under the sacred bo tree. The second 
one he entered at death, and in this he still retains 
consciousness and power; he can come on invita- 
tion to inhabit his images and can bless his votaries. 
Thus his life is not yet ended. It is to last 5,000 
years, when he will attain the final stage of Nippan, 
complete annihilation for a time. His religion is 
only a preparatory one, admonishing the negative 
virtues and warning against positive vices. Some 
say that at the end of the 5,000 years, others that 
when all men become pure as milk, Ahreyah Mettai 
will be born and take his turn, out of which he was 
cheated by Kotama. He is to combine all the 
glories of person, and all the virtues and powers of 
his four brothers who have preceded him, and is to 
live and reign 84,000 years. All who have white 
hearts will be born or reborn at that time, and 
when he enters Nippin they too shall enter, and 
thus stop the hitherto ceaseless round of trans- 
migration. Yet only for a time. After cycles of 


nee nS 


88 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

eee Nk Res Sa le nee 
ages all must begin the dreary round again, the five 
brothers, animals and men alike. 

And so it has come to pass that as missionaries 
go about Siam with the good tidings of Jesus 
Christ, people ask one another in awed tones: “Is 
not this He for whom we look?” Buddhist monks, 
instead of being bitterly hostile like the priests and 
mullahs of other lands, invite the missionaries to 
their temples and eagerly inquire of them further 
of this matter. “I was kept so busy attending the 
sick and answering questions in regard to the re- 
ligion of Jesus, that I found it difficult to press my 
way through the crowd Sunday afternoon and ride 
off to visit another village nearby,” wrote a medical 
missionary, Dr. William A. Briggs. “The ‘head 
man of the village showed deep interest, listening 
for hours. The highest official of the district, an 
old, white-haired governor, sent a special messenger 
to call us to his place, asked to hear our message, 
and listened to it thankfully and even devoutly. In 
the evening, over thirty persons, who had waited 
hours in the temple for my return, listened with 
eager attention for an hour and a half to the story 
of the birth, life, death, resurrection, and promised 
coming again of our Lord. The messages were re- 
ceived with outspoken gratitude and intelligent in- 
terest, many of the people remaining till long after 
midnight, reading the books and tracts by the light 
of the fire and asking questions of the Christians 
in our company. In Muang Daam City, one priest 





A BUDDHIST PRIEST AT WORSHIP 


a 
| see 
aa _ 





a 


THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 89 








paid us eight or ten visits, coming every night after 
dark and staying until we were too tired to talk 
longer. He was given a copy of the Scriptures and 
spent many hours in diligent study, asking thought- 
ful questions that he might be able to teach others. 
These people, hungry for truth that satisfied and 
longing for light, are anxiously awaiting the com- 
ing of the promised Messiah of Buddhism. What 
a preparation for the true Messiah! 

“T was finally obliged to request them to leave 
that I might rest. I then went to say farewell to 
the abbot of the monastery, who was sitting in 
state, teaching the priests and novitiates their les- 
sons. I presented him with a copy of the Gospel 
according to St. Matthew, which he accepted with 
thanks. As I turned to go, I found two or three 
men to whom I had given leaflets, who implored 
me to explain some things to them more fully. 
Thus, for a half hour after midnight, I preached 
on the Lord’s Prayer and ‘Come unto Me’, having 
for an audience the two or three men of the village, 
the abbot, and some twenty odd priests and monks, 
all of whom gave most respectful and thoughtful 
attention. In the morning, at five o’clock, the abbot 
and the people of the village were out to wish me 
many good things; promising a warm welcome 
should I return.” 

Dr. Dodd wrote that many of his auditors looked 
upon Jesus as the next Buddha, Ahreyah Mettai. 
Many lifted both hands in worship of the pictures, 





90 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





the books and the preachers. This, of course, he 
forbade, and tried to explain Christ as the true Mes- 
siah of all men. The general expectation of the 
reincarnation of Buddha doubtless explains the re- 
ception accorded the colporteurs. They were treated 
in most places as the messengers of the Buddhist 
Messiah. Offerings of food, flowers and wax tapers 
were made to them. In return, they were expected 
to bless the givers. The colporteurs explained that 
they themselves were sinners deriving all merit and 
blessing from Jehovah God, and then reverently 
asked a blessing from Him. Thus Christian services 
were held in hundreds of homes. 

Some of the late Dr. McGilvary’s warmest friends 
in Chiengmai were Buddhist monks. He regularly 
visited the monasteries and was always cordially 
received. During our own tour in the Lao States, 
we visited many monasteries and sometimes we 
camped in the temple grounds. We were invariably 
welcomed with great cordiality. Never has the 
Christian missionary had a better opportunity to 
take tactful advantage of a national belief for the 
introduction of the Gospel of Christ. Him, whom 
they unconsciously expect, the missionary, like 
St. Paul in Athens, declares unto them, not in any 
spirit of sectarianism or nationality but as the One 
for whom the world waits and through whom only 
man may enter into communion with God. 


THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 91 


Religious Toleration 


The welcome accorded to the missionaries is 
partly due to the prevailing belief described in the 
preceding pages, partly to the nature of Buddhism, 
and partly to the high character and unfailing tact 
of the missionaries. The Hon. Hamilton King, 
when American Minister to Siam, wrote of a trip 
to a remote village with the Rev. Dr. E. P. Dunlap: 
“From the first the head man of the island was our 
friend. He assisted in getting the people together 
in the meetings and sat an interested listener to the 
words of truth. Although a Buddhist himself he 
encouraged the people to hear the truth, and said 
he desired with them to learn the best. And let me 
say right here, this is the attitude of Buddhistic 
Siam throughout, from the King upon the throne 
to the most humble coolie, the priest in the temples 
and the officials of the Government. Among all and 
under all circumstances I hhave yet to hear the first 
word of ridicule or opposition as touching the 
teachings of Christianity; and my verdict is the 
verdict of all our missionaries in the work. The 
Siamese people are an open-minded people, and the 
King of Siam and his Government are the most 
tolerant of religious teachings of any Ruler and 
any government of which I have heard.” 

We have noted in another chapter that there has 
been a stiffening of Buddhist attitude since the ac- 
cession of the present King; but it is still true that 


92 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Siam is a wide open country to the Christian mis- 
sionary. 

We paid a visit to the Priest-Prince Vajiranana, 
a brother of the late King, and the head of the 
Buddhists of Siam. He lived in a noble group of 
buildings resembling those of a renowned Euro- 
pean university, for here is the famous Pali College 
where scholars of the highest rank study the sacred 
books. The Prince knew my relation to the effort 
to Christianize his people, for the American Minis- 
ter had, to my confusion, introduced me as “the 
Father of all the missionaries”. But nothing could 
have exceeded the cordiality. of his manner or the 
mingled tact and frankness with which he com- 
mended our mission schools and pointed out how 
the missionaries could increase their influence by 
more thoroughly studying the literature and cus- 
toms of the Siamese and by coming into a closer 
relation with the princes who exemplify the best 
types of national learning and manners. 

Knowing that the Prince was a noted Pali 
scholar, I spoke of the King’s edition of the three 
collections of the sacred books of the Buddhists 
known as the Pali Tri-pitaka, published by order 
of the King in thirty-nine volumes in 1894, and of 
the interest aroused by His Majesty’s generosity in 
sending sets to Yale and Harvard Universities, as 
well as to the Royal Asiatic Society of London and 
several European libraries. These sacred books had 
hitherto been printed only on palm strips in Cam- 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 93 





bodian characters. The preface states that the 
French control of Cambodia and Anam, the Eng- 
lish control of Burma and Ceylon, and the fact that 
Lao Buddhism is of a less pure type, were en- 
dangering the purity of the sacred text. So the 
King of Siam undertook the pious task of ordering 
the best of the princely scholars to edit a correct 
text, and he printed it in Siamese characters in this 
series of stately volumes. This was revolutionary 
in Siam, and it has resulted in a much wider dis- 
semination and a more general study of the 
Buddhist Scriptures. 


Buddhist Teaching 


Since a study of Buddhism affords a clue to many 
things in Siam, which is the centre and stronghold 
of orthodox Buddhism, we may remind ourselves 
of a few salient facts regarding this great religious 
system. Its founder was Gautama, who was born 
at Kapilavastu, India, about 463 B.C. He was a 
devout, high-minded man who thought long and 
deeply upon the mystery of life. One must have in 
mind the outcome of his brooding in order to under- 
stand Siam. The four basic principles of his teach- 
ings, as adopted by a Council in the reign of the 
famous Buddhist Emperor Asoka, 250 B. C., were: 
1. All existence is evil because all existence is sub- 
ject to change and decay. 2. The source of this 
evil is the desire for things which are to change 





94 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





and pass away. 3. This desire and the evil which 
follows it are not inevitable; for if we choose we 
can arrive at Nirvana when both shall wholly cease. 
4. There is a fixed and certain method to adopt, 
by pursuing which we attain this end without pos- 
sibility of failure.* 

Buddha’s appeal was to the reason of man. He 
was preeminently the rationalist of his age. Un- 
like Mohammed, he offered no material rewards. 
His disciples went about persuading men. Nor 
did he use force. The spirit of Buddhism is tol- 
erant. It is seldom opposed to the coming of 
Christianity. Its all-embracing catholicity simply 
makes room for every other system. 

Three words are prominent in Buddhism: Karma, 
merit and Nirvana. 

Karma “is the doctrine that, as soon as a sentient 
being (man, animal or angel) dies, a new being is 
produced in a more or less painful and material 
state of existence, according to the ‘Karma,’ the 
desert of merit of the being who had died.” ? 

Merit is the teaching that the individual can influ- 
ence the character of his future birth by the acts of 
this present state. Certain deeds make merit, which 
can be accumulated so as to better one’s condition 
in the next incarnation. Popular efforts to gain 
merit are to place a prop under a drooping branch 


1T, W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism, 101. 
* Rhys Davids, 101. 


THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 95 


of a bo tree, or to build a rest house for travelers, or 
to give alms to a monk. The motive is neither 
sympathy for the traveler nor respect for the monk, 
but the making of merit. It is an elaborate system 
of the salvation of the individual by works. A 
woman, by fidelity and obedience to her husband, 
may be born the next time as a man; if she is un- 
faithful or disobedient, she may be born as a 
monkey or a pig. 

Nirvana has been defined in different ways. Some 
call it annihilation, some absorption in God. Rhys 
Davids says that “it is the extinction of that sinful, 
grasping condition of mind and heart which would 
otherwise, according to the great mystery of Karma, 
be the cause of renewed individual existence.” The 
“Buddhist Catechism” defines it as a “state of 
mind and heart in which all desire for life or annihi- 
lation, all egotistic craving, has become extinct, and 
with it every passion, every grasping desire, every 
fear, every ill-will, and every sorrow. It is a state 
of perfect inward peace, accompanied by the im- 
perturbable certainty of having attained deliver- 
ance, a state words cannot describe, and which the 
imagination of the worldling tries in vain to picture 
to himself. Only one who has himself experienced 
it knows what Nirvana is.” 

This “Buddhist Catechism” includes the follow- 
ing interesting questions and answers: 

“Did a God-Creator call the world into existence 
by His will?’ 





96 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





“Answer: There is no God-Creator upon whose 
grace or will the existence of the world depends. 
Everything originates and develops by and out of 
itself, by virtue of its own will and according to its 
inner nature and condition (its Karma). Only the 
ignorance of man has invented a personal God- 
Creator. The Buddhists, however, absolutely reject 
the belief in a personal god, and consider the doc- 
trine of a creation out of nothing a delusion.” 

“Is there any positive or absolute evil?” 

“Answer: No. Everything temporal is relative, 
including things morally good or bad. Both ex- 
pressions denote merely the higher or lower degree 
of egotism of a living being, whose roots are the 
will-to-live and ignorance. No living being, no 
matter how deeply it may be sunk in selfishness and 
ignorance, is excluded from emancipation. Every- 
one can attain wisdom and perfection, if he really 
wants to, though perhaps only through a long series 
of rebirths. On the other hand, no being, no mat- 
ter how good and noble, is certain of emancipation 
until it has reached Nirvana. As long as the least 
craving for life and the least remainder of ignorance 
exist, a relapse may always occur,- for all action, 
good as well as bad, remains in the sphere of finite- 
ness and does not lead beyond. To Nirvana lead 
only the separation from action and the complete 
overcoming and total annihilation of the will-to-live 
through true knowledge.” 

Siamese Buddhism holds to the doctrine of trans- 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 97 





migration of souls, though it is not so prominent as 
in some other lands. The spirit of one who dies is 
believed to be reborn on the earth either in some 
higher or lower form according to the character of 
the earthly life. This accounts for the unwilling- 
ness to kill animals, birds, and even serpents, since 
they may contain the spirits of former human 
beings who may later be reborn as men again. This 
explains, too, the veneration that the people give to 
the “white” elephants, which are supposed to be 
reincarnations of some great and powerful men. 
Therefore attendants reverently kneel when offer- 
ing the great beasts bits of food on silver platters. 

There are no blood-sacrifices as in Hinduism. 
There is strong emphasis on kindly deeds, alms- 
giving, patience and submission. Buddhism at its 
best is simply a system of ethics. Its teachings are 
purely naturalistic and atheistic. Buddha “renounced 
dependence upon God, angels, ceremonies, and for- 
bade to place faith in any saviour, divine or human; 
but taught that we are to have reliance in ourselves, 
and that without prayers or sacrifices or the para- 
phernalia of worship we are to associate ourselves 
with others like-minded, that together we may fol- 
low the noble eight-fold path which is based on the 
four great truths, and thus attain the end of our 
labors—salvation.” 

We should not hastily assume that Buddhism in 
Siam is a waning force, or that the friendliness of 
officials is indicative of a disposition to accept the 


EEE EEE EEE a en 


98 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

Leg TESTES REG OT STE ESE Wale ns 
Gospel of Christ. The mental attitude which looks 
upon Christianity with good-natured indifference 
is as hard to overcome as that which regards all re- 
ligion as equally true, or, as Gibbon has reminded 
us, what is the same thing—equally false. 

Buddhism is not conducive to physical or mental 
energy. Buddha held that man should be neutral 
in all things, avoid extremes, and neither love nor 
hate. Activity is evil; passiveness is virtue. The 
Siamese Buddhist languidly asks: “What is the 
use of troubling ourselves and of toiling to lay up 
treasures in this world? We brought nothing into 
it and we can take nothing out of it. So that we 
have food and clothing, why not be content and 
spend life in meditation?” Such material is harder 
to break than a rock. It is like the Southern forts 
of soft palmetto logs in the American Civil War, in 
which bullets buried themselves without shattering 
the logs, so that the more lead that was fired into 
them the more impregnable they became. 

Few men have the strength of character to do 
what Gautama did. With his indomitable moral 
courage he fought the battle of life to an issue un- 
aided. His followers, lacking his vision and per- 
sistence, have made sorry work of his teachings. 
Here and there, exceptional individuals have main- 
tained the consistency of their religion; but the 
masses, after a few ineffective struggles, have sunk 
helplessly back into the abyss. Indeed, they have 
resorted to so many expedients that Gautama would 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 99 





have repudiated and have incorporated into their 
practice so many idolatrous elements that, if he 
could return to the earth today, he would not recog- 
nize the faith that bears his name. Even the com- 
mand not to take life is evaded. Fish are freely 
caught as a staple article of food, but “we do not 
kill them; we simply lay them on the bank and 
they die.” The priest who will not kill a fowl him- 
self will gladly eat it if someone else will kill it for 
him. Buddhists who would not kill even a snake 
or a mosquito will fight their fellowmen to the 
death. Public wars and private feuds occur in 
Buddhist lands as in others, and many for- 
mer Buddhist kings and lesser officials have been 
notorious for bloody cruelty. Buddhism is not only 
far below the moral level of Christian teachings 
but it is absolutely unreconcilable with many of 
them. It shows the utter breakdown of a religion 
of human reason. It has undoubtedly brought 
benefits to the lands in which it prevails, because 
it is a higher type of faith than that which it dis- 
placed. It exalts reason and urges man to think for 
himself and to obey nature’s laws. 


Christ or Buddha? 


But while Buddhism raised its converts slightly 
above their old level, it has left them there. Christ 
communicates a living power which enables His 
disciples to practice His precepts, in some measure 


nnn aaa EE a ddnEIEE SSIES ET 


100 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





at least. But Buddhism is utterly destitute of such 
power. It is barren and dead as a formative force 
in character and life. It did not better India, nor 
has it shown a regenerative energy in any of the 
lands it has entered. No Buddhist nation ever de- 
veloped the principles of new life until Christianity 
entered. 

The fundamental teaching of Christianity is ex- 
actly the reverse of that of Buddhism. Buddhism 
attaches little value to personality and teaches that 
it is to be extinguished. Man is a “drop of water,” 
to borrow a phrase from Victor Hugo, who has 
come out of the ocean of infinity and who is to be 
merged into it. Christianity on the other hand 
emphasizes personality and teaches that it is to be 
continued throughout eternity. Buddhism mini- 
mizes, Christianity emphasizes, the worth of the 
individual. While both recognize the sorrows of 
life and the duty of observing the ordinary morali- 
ties of behaviour, Jesus gives the answer to the 
problem which Buddha despairingly failed to find. 

A Chinese evangelist graphically illustrated this 
by picturing to his hearers the plight of a man who 
had fallen into a deep pit. Presently Gautama, the 
founder of Buddhism, came along, peered into the 
pit and said: “What is the matter, my good man?” 
The man replied: “I have fallen into this pit and 
cannot get out.” “I advise you then,” said Gau- 
tama, “to spend your time in meditation in order 
that you may not be troubled by your condition ;” 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 101 


and he passed on. Soon, Confucius passed and 
asked the same question: “What is the matter, 
my good man?” only to receive the same reply. 
Whereupon Confucius suavely said: “It is well to 
learn by experience, and I am sure that you will so 
profit by your present plight that if you get out 
of this pit you will be careful not to fall into it 
again.” And he passed on. Finally, said the 
preacher, the Lord Jesus approached, asked the 
same question, but, on receiving the same reply, 
he did not, like Gautama and Confucius, content 
himself with meaningless advice, but He stretched 
down His hand, took hold of the imprisoned man, 
and drew him forth. Yes, this is what Christ does, 
and what He alone does. He saves. 

Buddhism is pure selfishness. The whole system 
centers in the interests of the individual. Its chief 
object is to lead man to live for himself and to eman- 
cipate himself wholly from the world. There is no 
thought of the salvation of society or of others through 
the individual. 

Christianity is just the opposite of this. It is 
preeminently the religion of altruism. It tells its 
disciples to think of others rather than of them- 
selves. The ideal Christian is not a monk in a 
monastery, or a hermit in a cell, but a man down in 
the dusty ways of life. Buddhism teaches that life 
is evil and therefore its supreme object is to escape 
it. Christianity believes that sin is evil and there- 
fore its supreme object is to save men from it. 


102 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Buddhism tries to run away from life, while Chris- 
tianity tries to transform it. Said a blind listener 
to a missionary who had told him about Christ: 
“I feel bound to believe you. I can tell by your voice 
that you truly love your God and want others to 
worship also the great Being you trust and love. 
That you should be interested enough in me and 
my afflicted son to explain to us so very carefully 
your message is an unheard of experience for me. 
No worshippers of other religions have taken the 
interest in me that you have taken. I have lived 
nearly fifty years on this Island and there are over 
fifty Buddhist priests here and there are many 
thousands of Buddhist priests on the mainland, but 
they do not seem to care for my future welfare. I 
thank you for telling me about Jesus.” 

Modern Buddhism, too, compromises with evil, 
as Christianity does not. This helps to account for 
Buddhism’s rapid progress and its great hold upon 
a third of the human race. It calls for very little 
self-sacrifice. It leaves the individual in the possess- 
ion of his favorite sins and vicious indulgences and 
superstitious practices. A man can be a good 
Buddhist and at the same time a bad man. Why 
then should he not be a Buddhist, since no sacrifice 
is involved? This was not the teaching of Gautama. 
He was a man of high personal character, and some 
of his followers today are men of like type. But 
Buddhism as a present-day religion has lost what 
little power it ever had to keep its devotees morally 
straight. 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 103 





The Fear of Spirits 


We should not imagine, however, that Buddhism 
is the sole religion of Siam, for in common with 
other non-Christian faiths it has been superimposed 
upon a basic mass of animistic beliefs. Animism 
may be defined as the fear of demons, of ghosts 
and portents, a peopling of the earth and air, the 
rivers and forests with spirits of varying degrees 
of benevolence and malevolence, chiefly the latter. 
Most Asiatics and practically all Africans are 
haunted from the cradle to the grave by this fear 
of evil spirits. Every occurrence in nature is 
attributed to them. Thunder is the roar of a 
demon; lightning the flash of his angry eyes; dis- 
ease is due to a demon in the body. Everywhere 
in Siam one observes the mingling of Animism and 
Buddhism. Spirit shrines are common both out- 
side and inside of the humble houses, and a large 
part of the worship of the people, particularly in 
the north, is an attempt to propitiate spirits. When 
an epidemic broke out in a Lao village, the panic- 
stricken people besought the missionaries of the 
nearest station to come and cast out the demons, 
and when the epidemic abated under the sanitary 
measures and medical treatment which the mis- 
sionaries applied, the people wanted to become 
Christian en masse, because they believed that the 
Christian spirits were stronger than the others. A 
medical missionary writes that a nineteen year old 


104 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





girl from a non-Christian home came to his hos- 
pital. She was very ill but began to improve. One 
night the girl thought she saw some evil spirits 
enter the room, and in the morning she begged to 
be permitted to go home for a few days. Her 
parents wanted ther to attend a feast to feed the 
evil spirits. They insisted on taking her, but she 
was not strong enough to stand the strain of the 
journey and the ceremony, and died shortly after- 
was doing well when his family decided that he had 
ward. Another man came in suffering greatly. He 
better go home to give the evil spirits the head of 
a pig, and then ‘the would return to the hospital. 
He went home and died that night. “Evil spirits 
are our greatest enemy,” writes the missionary. 
“The people live all the time in terror of them. 
Education in our Christian schools, and years of it, 
is the best and about the only method of curing the 
people of their dread of evil spirits.” 


Islam 


The statistical survey of Islam in Asia, published 
in the proceedings of the “First Missionary Con- 
ference on Behalf of the Mohammedan World at 
Cairo, 1906,” listed one million Mohammedans in 
Siam, on authority of Hubert Jansen, who stated 
that the Mohammedans in Siam were called Sam- 
sams. We are inclined to think that this is rather 
a vague estimate, although undoubtedly there are 
some Mohammedans among the Chinese and 





THE LAND OF THE YELLOW ROBE 105 





Malayans in Siam. At any rate, Mohammedanism 
is not in evidence. The author did not see a mosque 
in his travels throughout Siam, and the Rev. A. 
Willard Cooper, who has resided in Siam for a 
generation, writes: “The only Mohammedans in 
Siam that I know about are natives of India. 
I have not known in Siam of Chinese Moham- 
medans, nor ever heard of the name ‘Samsams’ as 
applied to a class of people. I would not affirm 
there might not be such, as I do not understand 
their language. But I consider it quite incredible 
that we should have anything even remotely ap- 
proximating to a million Mohammedans in Siam.” 


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Pioneer Experiences 





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CHAPTER V 
PIONEER EXPERIENCES 


Picture getting to Siam as the first missionaries 
had to go, about a hundred years ago. No great, 
luxurious steamships with ample supplies of milk 
and ice water and fresh meat; only small sailing 
vessels with few conveniences and no luxuries. The 
voyage of a month or more from New York to 
Liverpool was not so bad, for the ships were reason- 
ably good for those days; but from England to 
Siam one had to take passage on a slow schooner 
with close, unventilated cabins and ill smelling din- 
ing saloon. Since there was no ice, the meat was 
corned “bully beef” and salt pork. Butter and lard 
became rancid, biscuits wormy, and water tepid and 
slimy. Half a year had to be spent on such boats 
before one’s destination was reached, perhaps with 
health impaired by the poor food, bad water, and 
the bleeding which was then commonly resorted to 
in all physical troubles. 

No welcome awaited the messenger of the Cross 
when he landed. The people were suspicious. “What 
have these strange white men come here for?” 
There were no foreign houses, and available native 
ones were bamboo huts with thatched roofs. Let- 
ters from the homeland came at rare and irregular 
intervals, once in six months or a year. Supplies 
of foreign food and clothing could be obtained only 


107 





108 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





at long intervals and great cost. Isolation and lone- 
liness in an alien environment were trying to sensi- 
tive spirits. The tropical climate, always debilita- 
ting, bore heavily upon men and women who were 
deprived of the accustomed refinements of American 
life, and the death rate among the early missionaries 
was high. Mr. Tomlin and Mr. Abeel broke down in 
their first year. Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Bradley and Mr. 
French soon died. Mrs. Dean died at Singapore before 
reaching Siam. Mr. Robinson, invalided home after 
brief service, was buried on the way at St. Helena. 
But those who could stay did, a little paler, a little 
weaker, but resolute and undismayed. History will 
write the names of those pioneers upon the pages 
which record the heroism of bygone days. 


Missionary Beginnings 

It was in such circumstances that missionary work 
was inaugurated in Siam. The beginnings date back 
to 1818 and to the honored name of Mrs. Ann Hassel- 
tine Judson of Burma. She never visited Siam, but 
met some Siamese in Rangoon and through them heard 
such accounts of their country that she became deeply 
interested, learned the language and translated a tract, 
a catechism, and the Gospel by St. Matthew. The Eng- 
lish Baptist Mission press at Serampore printed the 
catechism in 1819, “the first Christian book ever printed 
in Siamese.” 

The first Protestant missionaries to visit Siam were 
the famous Dr. Karl Friedrich August Gutzlaff of the 


Se 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 109 
ce EO as Set Wn LIES EINES ISR RI Seas ie aise 
Netherlands Missionary Society and the Rev. Jacob 
Tomlin of the London Missionary Society, who came 
to Bangkok in 1828 and began work among the Chinese. 
Ill health forced Mr. Tomlin to return to Singapore 
the following year. Dr. Gutzlaff left Bangkok for 
China in 1831. He baptized only one convert in Siam, 
a Chinese named Boon-tai, but his influence did not 
stop with his departure. Not only did he leave some 
translations of Scripture portions, which were printed 
in Singapore, but he and Mr. Tomlin had united in an 
appeal to the American churches to undertake perma- 
nent work in this needy field. That appeal was con- 
veyed to America in 1829 by Captain Coffin of the 
American trading vessel which brought those physical 
freaks, the Siamese Twins. 


The Congregational Mission 


The first board to respond was the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which sent the 
the Rev. David Abeel from Canton. He arrived 
July 2, 1831, shortly after Dr. Gutzlaff had left. Il 
health compelled him to leave November 5, 1832; but 
in 1834 and 1835 seventeen missionaries, including 
wives, arrived and for a time everything looked 
bright. But disease and adverse conditions soon 
decimated the little company. In 1846, the Ameri- 
can Board, whose main thought from the beginning 
had been for the Chinese rather than the Siamese, 
concluded that the time had come when the former 
could be reached in China more effectively than in 


110 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Siam, and it therefore transferred Mr. Peet and Mr. 
Johnson to Foochow. The few remaining mis- 
sionaries struggled on among the Siamese. In 1848 
Mr. Caswell died, and when ill health drove out Mr. 
Hemenway and his family in 1849, the Mission of 
the American Board was closed. Fifteen years of 
hard labor had not resulted in any baptisms, but the 
toil of those devoted missionaries in that steaming 
climate formed an essential part of the foundation 
upon which others were to build. 


Two Notable Men 


Two members of this early American Board 
Mission did much to make possible the subsequent 
development of Siam. One of these was the Rev. 
Jesse Caswell, who had arrived in 1840 and whose 
ability and wisdom so impressed Prince Chow Fah 
Mongkut that this future King chose him as his 
special instructor and for a year and a half (1845- 
1846) studied as a docile pupil. The enlightened and 
progressive policy of King Mongkut, which was the 
real beginning of modern Siam and which gave op- 
portunity to missionary work, was due in no small 
degree to the training that he received from this 
devoted missionary. 

The other notable missionary of the American 
Board was Dr. Dan. B. Bradley, M.D., who arrived 
July 18, 1835. He brought the first printing press to 
Siam. Prior to his coming, what few books and 
tracts were available had been obtained from China 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 111 





and Singapore. This press, together with one 
brought by Baptist missionaries the following year, 
made possible the publication of books and tracts 
and the Gospels in Bangkok, and set in motion a 
movement which was to result in a voluminous 
Christian literature and, with the generous coopera- 
tion of the American Bible Society, in the publica- 
tion of the complete Bible. Finding that multitudes 
of the Siamese died annually from smallpox, Dr. 
Bradley introduced vaccination in 1840. When the 
American Board withdrew its missionaries, he felt 
that he could not leave the people to whose spiritual 
welfare he had consecrated his life. He transferred 
his connection to the American Missionary Asso- 
ciation, and though the Association soon gave up the 
field, he continued his work until his death in Bang- 
kok, June 23, 1893. He was remarkable alike as a 
physician, a scholar, and an evangelist, and his name 
is still venerated by the Siamese. 


The Baptist Mission 


The American Baptist Missionary Union also had a 
part in the early efforts to give the Gospel to the Siam- 
ese. The Baptist missionaries in Burma answered the 
appeal of Dr. Gutzlaff and Mr. Tomlin by sending the 
Rev. and Mrs. John T. Jones, who arrived in Bangkok 
March 25, 1833. The Rev. William Dean came in 1835 
with Dr. Bradley, and Mr. and Mrs. Reed and Mr. and 
Mrs. Davenport in the following year, July 2, 1836, 
bringing a printing outfit with them. The Baptists, 


112 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


like the Congregationalists, felt that the most inviting 
opportunities at that period were among the Chinese 
in Bangkok and the first converts were Chinese. Re- 
sults came slowly, but by 1848 sixty persons had been 
added to the little church. 

Reenforcements came in 1840 and 1843, but sickness 
and death made sad havoc among the little band of 
workers, and the Siamese showed no disposition to 
accept Christ, the majority of the converts still being 
Chinese. When the Anglo-Chinese treaty of 1842 
opened five ports in China, the Baptist Missionary 
Union, like the American Board, decided that the 
mighty empire in the north offered more promising 
opportunities, and part of the Siam force was trans- 
ferred to China. A few recruits were added, but 
deaths, resignations and transfers weakened the little 
company, until, by 1871, Dr. Dean was the only Baptist 
missionary left, and on his death in 1884, the Mission 
was finally closed. It left many gracious influences 
and contributed not a little to the pioneer effort to gain 
a foothold for the Gospel. Some of the missionaries 
who afterward became prominent in China began their 
careers in Siam. Among these were the famous William 
Ashmore of Swatow, Josiah Goddard of Ningpo, and 
J. L. Schuck of Canton. 


The Presbyterian Vanguard 
The withdrawal of the Baptist and Congregational 
missions left the Presbyterian Mission the only one in 
the field. The Presbyterian movement for the evan- 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 113 





gelization of Siam had begun with the Rev. R. W. Orr, 
a missionary from China who made a visit of inquiry 
to Bangkok in November, 1838, and then strongly 
urged the Presbyterian Board to open a mission. The 
Board complied by sending the Rev. and Mrs. W. P. 
Buell in 1840. The failure of Mrs. Buell’s health 
obliged them to leave in 1844, and three years passed 
before a successor came. But in 1847 the Rev. Stephen 
Mattoon and Samuel R. House, M. D., arrived and 
permanent work was inaugurated. Mr. and Mrs. 
Mattoon did faithful work in Siam for nineteen years, 
and Dr. and Mrs. House for twenty-nine years. Mrs. 
House devoted herself to the education of the girls of 
Bangkok. She founded the first school for girls in 
Siam, which later became her memorial, the famous 
Harriet House School in Bangkok. In March, 1876, 
the ill health of Mrs. House compelled Dr. and Mrs. 
House to leave for America, where she died July 12, 
1893. Dr. House survived her five years, passing away 
October 13, 1898. George Haws Feltus has recently 
enriched missionary literature by his fine biography 
of Dr. House whom he happily characterizes as “the 
man with the gentle heart.” 

That the gentleness of Dr. House was united to 
indomitable fortitude the following incident shows. 
One day, while in the country on an itinerating tour, 
he was attacked by a rogue elephant which threw him 
to the ground, and, with one of its tusks, ripped open 
his body so that the intestines protruded. Dr. House’s 
medical knowledge enabled him to see at once that 





114 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





the wound would be fatal unless instantly treated. 
There was no one near but a few frightened natives, 
so the sorely wounded man bade them bring him water 
and then he himself washed his intestines, put them 
back with his own hands, and took a sufficient number 
of stitches to close the wound temporarily. Then he 
instructed the trembling natives to carry him to the 
mission station. He suffered long and grievously, but 
his first aid to himself had been so prompt that he 
finally recovered. The annals of war do not record 
greater fortitude. 


Reenforcements and a Church 


Mr. Mattoon and Dr. House labored for two years 
before reenforcements came. In 1849 they were joined 
by the Rev. and Mrs. Stephen Bush. Their stay, how- 
ever, was brief, Mrs. Bush dying in 1851 and Mr. Bush 
leaving the field with impaired health in 1853. The 
First Presbyterian Church in Siam was organized 
August 29, 1849. There were no native Christians 
connected with the Mission at that time, the member- 
ship of the church being confined to the missionary 
families. A Chinese teacher, Qua Kieng, had been 
baptized in 1844, and another Chinese, a young man 
from Hainan, in 1851; but no Siamese convert glad- 
dened the missionaries till 1859, nineteen years after 
the arrival of Mr. Buell. “With tears of joy,” Dr. 
House wrote, “the missionaries received the first fruits 
of labor among the Siamese.” Nai Chune was the 
name of the man who thus headed the roll of Siamese 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 115 


Christians. It required no small courage to cut loose 
from all the associations of his lifetime and to stand 
alone among his countrymen for Christ. But he 
proved faithful. 


Anxious Days 


Many difficulties attended this pioneer mission work. 
There was no experience of predecessors to guide the 
new arrivals in adapting themselves to the climate, in 
studying the language, and in getting into touch with 
the people. The Government of the time was un- 
friendly. The missionaries were not subjected to per- 
sonal violence, but several times the situation was most 
trying. The hostile attitude of the Government and the 
ruling classes was so well known and was exerted in 
such effective ways that obstacles confronted the little 
band of missionaries at every step. No Siamese land- 
lord dared to rent or sell them property, and they were 
often sorely beset for suitable housing. Finally, one 
Siamese, braver than the rest, sold a site. The money 
was actually paid, but before building operations could 
be begun, a high official declared the sale void and 
forced the owner to return the money, the reason given 
being that “the residence of foreigners there was con- 
trary to the custom of the country.” When Dr. Brad- 
ley’s medical work began to win the favor of the 
common people, the Buddhist priests made the odd 
complaint that if these foreigners were allowed to show 
kindness to everybody every day, their merit would 
soon outstrip that of the best men of the Kingdom! 


116 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


When the strain was most acute, a non-missionary 
foreigner, Captain Wellar by name, shot a couple of 
pigeons in the grounds of a Buddhist temple. He 
deserved the beating that the infuriated priests quickly 
gave him. He was badly injured, and the extravagant 
demands and haughty threats which he and his friends 
made added to the popular excitement. Dr. Bradley 
wrote in his journal August 10, 1835: “It is rumored 
that there is a plot on foot to burn down the houses 
of our Mission. Doubtless there are men who would 
rejoice in such an event, but I do not fear at present 
that we shall fall into such hands. An exceedingly 
scurrilous and obscene placard was, a few mornings 
since, found on the gate of our homestead, and on it 
were displayed in bold relief pictures of crosses, one 
for each of the adult members of our Mission.” The 
houses were not burned, but the missionaries were 
ordered to leave their premises within five days, and 
they had to find shelter as best they could, one family 
in a houseboat and another with the Baptist mission- 
aries, while Dr. Bradley sought temporary refuge with 
a friendly English merchant, Mr. Robert Hunter. The 
few native converts were fiercely persecuted and the 
native Christian workers were imprisoned. It looked 
for a time as if the end of all missionary work had 
come. 


The Day Grows Brighter 


Suddenly, when the prospect was blackest, the hostile 
King died (April 3, 1851), and his half brother, Prince 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 117 


Chow Fah Mongkut, ascended the throne. For twenty- 
seven years he had lived quietly in a Buddhist monas- 
tery, studying and thinking and showing rare openness 
of mind and heart to all good influences. When the 
missionaries from the West arrived, this priestly prince 
had welcomed them and, as we have already noted, 
engaged Mr. Caswell to instruct him in western learn- 
ing. Not only this, but he gave the missionary free 
use of a room on the temple grounds for daily preach- 
ing services after the royal pupil had taken his lesson. 

The new King showed himself as friendly to mis- 
sionaries on the throne as he had been in a monastery. 
He invited them to his palace and showed them many 
kindnesses. Instantly opposition vanished. Ground 
was secured without further difficulty, and buildings 
were erected. The missionaries wrote: ‘The princes 
and nobles now courted our society; our teachers and 
servants returned to their places; throngs came to our 
houses to receive books and to talk with us respecting 
their contents; and we were permitted to go where we 
chose, and to speak in the name of Jesus with the con- 
fidence that we should not be avoided, but obtain a 
respectful hearing.” The King even permitted some 
of the missionary women to enter the royal harem and 
teach. 

The work now made steady progress. New arrivals 
strengthened the missionary force. The Christian 
Boys’ High School was opened in 1852. In 1860, Pet- 
chaburi, whose Governor, in 1843, had treated Dr. 
Buell with contemptuous indignity, gave polite atten- 





118 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


tion to Dr. House, Mr. Telford, and Mr. Wilson, and 
in the following year a station was formally established 
there. It is a provincial capital, possesses a famous 
royal palace, and, with its neighboring city of Ratburi 
and numerous outlying villages, forms a missionary 
field of 350,000 souls. 

The death of King Mongkut in 1868 was deeply 
mourned; but his son, the late King Chulalongkorn, 
continued the tolerant policy of his father, and a proc- 
lamation of religious liberty was issued in 1870. Ayu- 
thia, since merged with the Bangkok field, was made a 
station in 1872, and 1878 saw a second church organ- 
ized in Bangkok. 

The influence of the missionaries was recognized on 
every hand. In 1878 the King appointed the Rev. 
Samuel G. McFarland, who had come to Siam in 1860, 
Superintendent of Public Instruction and President of 
the Royal College in Bangkok, the first college to be 
opened in Siam. Dr. and Mrs. McFarland were freely 

permitted to use their enlarged opportunities for Christ. 
_ Their son, George B. McFarland, M. D., became Super- 
intendent of the Government Hospital and Dean of the 
Royal Medical College. Most of the Siamese physicians 
whom he has trained are in the service of the Govern- 
ment either as army surgeons or as medical inspectors 
under civil appointment. His knowledge of the Siamese 
language and literature has never been surpassed by 
any toreigner, and he has long been a tower of strength 
to the cause of Christ in Siam. 





A STREET CORNER, BANGKOK 





A TYPICAL RIVER MARKET SCENE 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 119 


The Spread of the Work 

A suffering native of Nakawn Sritamarat having 
heard, in 1883, of the fame of an English physician in 
Bangkok, left Nakawn in a little sail-boat in search of 
healing. His wife accompanied him to nurse him by 
the way. Adverse winds drove their little craft into 
the Petchaburi River where they met a Christian who 
said: “Why go to Bangkok? There is a good mission- 
ary physician at Petchaburi who will gladly care for 
you.” The sick man was welcomed to the hospital, and 
there found recovery from his disease and Christ as 
his Saviour. His wife also was converted. They re- 
solved to return to their native province and tell the 
good news. They were given instruction in the Bible, 
and in less than a year from the time they reached the 
Petchaburi hospital, ignorant even of the name of 
Jesus, they were earnestly proclaiming Him not only 
in the city of Nakawn but even to the northwest border 
of the province. It was not long before several persons, 
instructed by them, journeyed to Bangkok and Petcha- 
buri and united with the churches in those places. 

Deeply moved by this incident, the Bangkok mission- 
aries visited the field and did what they could to inau- 
gurate work. They labored at great disadvantage, since 
Nakawn Sritamarat is about 400 miles from Bangkok, 
and the only means of access at that time was by water 
on the treacherous Gulf of Siam. Steamers ran very 
irregularly, and during six months of the year, when 
the monsoon threw the waves boisterously against the 
shore, it was impossible to land. The work, however, 


120 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


developed so promisingly that a church of thirty-one 
members was organized in 1895, and in 1900 two mis- 
sionary families were in residence. The good-will of 
the people made it easy to secure land, a house was 
soon erected, and later a hospital, the King making a 
liberal contribution. The town is the natural center 
for all that part of the peninsula and the seat of a 
Royal High Commissioner. 

Pitsanuloke, although a town of moderate size, is a 
strategic point for the mission station which was 
opened in 1899. It was formerly the capital of Siam 
and now, as the residence of one of the two Royal High 
Commissioners, it is the seat of government for central 
Siam. Its field for missionary itineration extends 
northward to Utradit, six days distant by boat, and 
along the intervening river bank are nearly 200 villages. 
Southward no less than 150 villages line the banks 
to Paknampo, an eight days’ journey, where it meets 
the northern end of the Bangkok Station field. All 
these 350 villages are accessible by a houseboat in 
which the missionary can live for weeks at a time. 
Westward, Pitsanuloke missionaries can find other 
villages during a six days’ overland trip to Raheng on 
the Meping River, while eastward for an indefinite 
distance there are hundreds of villages which have 
never seen a missionary. A native evangelist, who 
made an exploring tour some years ago, reported that 
for six days he passed villages of from ten to two 
hundred houses every few hours, and that the people 
surprised him by their interest and attention. The first 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 121 


missionaries at Pitsanuloke had a hard time. Suitable 
property could not be secured, and the missionaries 
and their families lived for several years in houseboats 
on the river. Now they have schools, a hospital, a 
church and residences. The buildings are of modest 
size and limited equipment, but faithful work is being 
done. 

Trang, where a mission station was opened in 1910, 
is on the western side of the peninsula and is the lead- 
ing place in a region where the late Rev. Dr. Eugene 
P. Dunlap made annual tours, distributing medicines, 
tracts and Scripture portions, preaching the Gospel and 
baptizing converts. The field comprises nine Siamese 
provinces and five Malay State dependencies of Siam. 
The mines in this region yield more than half the tin of 
the world, the Ranong Province alone having 268 tin 
mines. The people are friendly and eagerly welcome 
the missionaries. All the provinces are on the sea and 
thus are easily reached by boat. A couple of English 
missionaries worked exclusively among the Chinese, 
but the Siamese population was wholly untouched until 
Dr. Dunlap began his tours. 


The Mission Pushes North 


Down to 1863, the labors of the missionaries were 
concentrated upon the Siamese and Chinese in lower 
Siam, chiefly in and near Bangkok. In that year, how- 
ever, a notable tour was made to the distant north. The 
Rey. Daniel McGilvary, then stationed at Petchaburi, 
had become interested in a neighboring village whose 





122 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





people spoke a different language and appeared to be 
distinct from the Siamese about them. Through these 
villagers he learned of a vast hill country to the north 
from which their ancestors had come. He became 
eager to know more of these people and to carry the 
Gospel to them. Therefore in 1863, he and a colleague, 
the Rev. Jonathan Wilson, made a long tour of explo- 
ration to the Lao country. It was an adventurous 
journey into an absolutely unknown land. For months 
the devoted missionaries made their way up the Menam 
River, their half-naked boatmen wading, pulling, and 
pushing by turns in order to get the boat over sand 
bars and through rapids, until they finally arrived at 
Chiengmai, 600 miles from Bangkok. Their report on 
their return was so enthusiastic that, in 1867, Mr. 
McGilvary returned to Chiengmai with his wife and 
founded the mission which became known as the Lao 
Mission. <A year later, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson joined 
them. To this day no visitor to Chiengmai fails to 
visit the bo tree under whose branches Dr. and Mrs. 
McGilvary lived for the first year of their stay. 


Immediate Results 


Results came more quickly than in Lower Siam. The 
scholarly missionaries foretold the eclipse of August, 
1869, a week before it occurred. The natives were 
profoundly impressed, and Nan Inta, one of the ablest 
and most influential Buddhist scholars of Chiengmai, 
was converted. He became a Christian of marked 
beauty and strength of character, and labored inde- 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 123 


fatigably for Christ till his death in 1882. His dying 
words to his youngest son were: “I am walking on the 
way you all must go, only be ready for our Lord. Oh, 
my son, do not fall from the right path. Trust in the 
Lord now, and do His work, as I have tried to do. 
You will suffer many trials, but they will be forgotten 
when the day of reward comes. You plant the rice 
fields in the water and in the rain, but in three months 
from now you will gather the harvest. Learn from 
this the yearly lesson of life and strengthen yourself 1n 
Jesus.” 


Two Noble Martyrs 


The conversion of Nan Inta was soon followed by 
that of seven others, and everything pointed to a rapid 
development of the work when the provincial governor 
began to persecute the Christians. Noi Su Ya and Nan 
Chai were arrested, and, on being brought before the 
authorities, confessed that they had forsaken Buddhism, 
“The death-yoke was then put around their necks, and 
a small rope was passed through the holes in their ears 
(used for ear-rings by all natives) and carried tightly 
over the beam of a house. After being thus tortured 
all night, they were again examined in the morning; 
but, with a fortitude worthy of the noblest traditions 
of the early Church, they steadfastly refused to deny 
their Saviour even in the very presence of death. They 
prepared for execution with a reverent prayer, closing 
with the words: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ They 
were then taken to the jungle and clubbed te death. 





124 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


One of them, not dying quickly enough to suit the exe- 
cutioners, was thrust through the heart with a spear.” 
The whole record eloquently testifies to the genuineness 
of faith and fidelity of these martyrs of the Lao 
Church. 

At this period Dr. McGilvary wrote to a missionary 
in Bangkok: “We write to tell you that we may be in 
great danger. If you never hear from us more, send 
some one up here to look after our Christians, and do 
not, we beg you, grieve over the loss of our lives. Two 
of our church members died at the martyr’s stake on 
the 14th of September. Warrants are out for the 
others. What is before us we do not know. All I want 
is time to see the Lord’s will.” 


Royal Favor and Religious Freedom 


The persecution proved to be short. The hostile 
governor died, and his successor was less truculent. 
More converts were baptized. In 1878, another crisis 
occurred over the desire of two Christians to be 
married by the missionaries without providing for the 
feast to evil spirits, as custom required. The relatives 
appealed to the magistrate, who sustained them and 
forbade the marriage. The missionaries promptly sent 
a petition to the King in Bangkok, which resulted in 
a “Proclamation of Religious Liberty to the Lao.” 
This proclamation was in the nature of a royal com- 
mand which has never since been repealed. It is a 
model as the following citation shows: 


“Religious and civil duties do not come in 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 125 


conflict. Whoever wishes to embrace any reli- 
gion, after seeing that it is true and proper to be 
embraced, is allowed to do so without any re- 
striction. Responsibility for a right or wrong 
choice rests on the individual making the choice. 
There is nothing in the laws and customs of 
Siam nor in its foreign treaties to throw any 
restriction on the religious worship and service 
of any one. To be more specific—if any person 
or persons wish to embrace the Christian reli- 
gion, they are freely permitted to follow their 
own choice. This Proclamation is to certify 
that from this time forth all persons are permit- 
ted to follow the dictates of their own con- 
science in all matters of religious belief and 
practice. 

“It is, moreover, strictly enjoined on Princes 
and Rulers, and on relatives and friends of those 
who wish to become Christians, that they throw 
no obstacles in their way, and that no one en- 
force any creed or work which their religion for- 
bids them to hold or do—such as the worship 
and feasting of demons and working on the 
Sabbath day, except in the case of war or other 
great unavoidable works, which, however, must 
not be of a mere pretense but really important. 
Be it further observed that they are to have free 
and unobstructed observance of the Sabbath 
day, and no obstacle is to be thrown in the way 
of American citizens employing such persons as 
they may need, since such would be a breach of 
the treaty between the two countries. 

“Whenever this Proclamation is made known 
to the Princes and Rulers and Officers and 
People, they are to beware and violate no pre- 
cept contained therein.” 


126 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


The effect of this command on missionary work may 
easily be imagined. The policy that it outlined has 
been continued to this day. The present King, when 
Crown Prince, visited America and at a dinner in New 
York, October 27, 1902, said: 


“I am proud of the religious freedom of my 
country. For six hundred years there never has 
been a case of religious persecution on the part 
of the Government. The Siamese are very tol- 
erant of other religions than their own. We 
have welcomed your Presbyterian missionaries. 
They have never interfered with the affairs of 
state and have always shown a readiness to 
obey the laws of the Government. They have 
not had any political designs as some others 
have. They have always been our friends. They 
have given us great help in many ways. My 
father, during the thirty-four years of his reign, 
has been tolerant of the missionaries and shown 
them many favors because of the good work 
which he has seen them do, especially in teach- 
ing the young and in healing the many diseases 
of the Siamese people. When I ascend the 
throne I promise that I will continue the policy 
of toleration and good will so long shown by 
my honored father.” 


Incurably a Pioneer 
A few years after the founding of Christian work 
at Chiengmai, Dr. McGilvary and another missionary 
set out on new trails. First they visited Chiengrai, 
an important city about eight days’ journey northward. 
The path ascends from the plain to 3,000 feet above 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 127 


sea level and crosses streams forty-nine times. The 
Governor of the Province listened attentively to the 
gospel message. Journeying by a wide detour to Nan, 
another provincial capital, Dr. McGilvary marked the 
city as a site for a future station. He was sixty-eight 
days on this trip. On each visit to towns he spent much 
time in explaining the Gospel privately to leading men. 
For many years he continued these journeys. On his 
elephant, this noble old apostle of the Lao visited again 
and again the provinces of the North and West. At 
three score and ten, when most men would have deemed 
itinerating impracticable, he made a long and laborious 
journey to a distant tribe which was without the Gospel. 
Twenty-six days he was drenched with dew and rain, 
ten times he had to swim his pony across rivers, four 
days he wearily tramped because his horse was too 
jaded to bear him. 

Dr. MicGilvary was one of the notable missionaries 
of the Universal Church. Mrs. Curtis, author of the 
excellent book entitled “The Laos in Northern Siam,” 
wrote of him: “Neither Cary nor Judson surpassed 
him in strength of faith and zeal of purpose; neither 
Paton nor Chalmers has outranked him in the wonders 
of their achievements, and not one of the other hun- 
dreds of missionaries ever has had more evidence of 
God’s blessing upon their work. The numerous 
churches, schools and hospitals and the large Christian 
constituency which today mark the work of the Mission 
are due in no small degree to the unselfish devotion of 
this servant of Christ.” 





128 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





A Pioneer’s Wife 

In 1923 a letter from Siam contained this passage: 
“Dear old Mrs. McGilvary was called Home in July. 
I suppose that no other woman has exerted such an 
influence on the life of this people, not only religiously 
but in matters of home economy, the introduction of 
flowers and vegetables, the care of children, everything 
in fact that tends to social improvement. The great 
respect and kind regard shown her even by the highest 
officials, including the royal family, indicated how far- 
reaching her influence has been. Last year Prince 
Damrong, one of the most noted men in Siam, called 
upon her, bringing his daughters with him. He said 
to them before Mrs. McGilvary, ‘I want you girls to 
meet a very remarkable woman and I want you to 
remember this visit.’ ” 

Chiengmai became the center of a widely extended 
work. It remained the only station, however, till 1885, 
when Dr. and Mrs. S. C. Peoples opened a station at 
Lakawn (Lampang). Lampoon (since consolidated 
with Chiengmai) was occupied in 1891; Prae in 1893 
by Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Briggs; Nan in 1894 by Dr. 
and Mrs. Peoples; and Chiengrai in 1897 by Mr. and 
Mrs. W. C. Dodd and Dr. and Mrs. C. H. Denman. 
Thus stations were located at the capitals of five of 
the six Lao states in Siam, the sixth, Luang Prabang, 
being inaccessible on account of French influence. 


Remarkable Tours 
Siam has been a land of missionary pioneers ever 


PIONEER EXPERIENCES 129 


since the first missionaries entered almost a hundred 
years ago. Strangely enough the pioneering continues 
to our day, and still the voices call to the regions 
beyond. “I doubt if in any of the annals of missionary 
work there has been recorded a more eager reception 
of the Gospel than we have had since we crossed the 
border of Siam.’ Thus wrote Dr. Hugh Taylor, 
veteran missionary, while on a long tour among the 
Tai people along the Mekong River. He continued: 
“T have been in the habit of taking some attraction 
along to gather the crowds. This trip I have my 
victrola and it is certainly a marvel to the people. They 
fairly go wild over some of the records, but the victrola 
is forgotten when we begin to present the Gospel 
message. The older people crowd the children out of 
their place of privilege in the front seats on the ground 
so as to be able to catch every word. I have gone to 
bed at night so tired that I felt like crying, and a hun- 
dred men below me on the ground repeating the mes- 
sage as they had heard it during the evening. And 
how they can beg for a copy of the Gospel of Luke or 
Matthew, the only ones we had and which they had 
seen some one else have! It is hard to refuse a man 
when he sits down on the ground and begs for a book 
to learn the Way of Salvation. When told they are 
all gone, he does not give up. The begging persists as 
long as we are there. The official of a district six days 
south got an officer of this district to introduce him to 
me today so that he could ask for a book of Scripture 
which he could not get from the colporteur, whose 


130 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


stock for the day was exhausted. He wanted to study 
it for himself and take it back to teach the people of 
his district. He got a copy out of the supply of twenty- 
six reserved for the six centers we are still to visit. In 
this way the Word is being carried to dozens of dis- 
tricts away off from our line of travel. What will the 
harvest be? I would like to be one of the reapers.” 

A. stirring example of pioneering was the taking of 
the Gospel across the border to the Tai in southern 
China. The missionaries had heard from wandering 
native traders of considerable populations beyond the 
Siam frontier. In 1903, the Rev. and Mrs. W. Clifton 
Dodd carried out a long cherished plan by starting 
missionary work at Kengtung in the Shan States north 
of the Siam boundary line. As this city is near the 
border of the Burma Mission of the American Baptists, 
a division of territory later left this city to the Burma 
Mission of their Society, and the Presbyterians went 
to the regions beyond where no Christian work was 
being done. In 1909 and 1910, Dr. Dodd and the Rev. 
John H. Freeman made tours of exploration which 
proved to be of historic interest. Dr. Dodd journeyed 
from Chiengrai through the Shan States and south- 
eastern China, to Canton, a journey of 1,700 miles and 
occupying five and a half months. 

This memorable tour brought to light some startling 
facts regarding the wide distribution of the Tai race. 
In addition to the numerous literate Lao in northern 
Siam and adjacent regions, there were revealed approx- 
imately 5,000,000 illiterate Tai centering in the Chinese 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 131 





provinces of Yunnan and Kwangsi, the ancient home 
of the race. No Protestant missionaries were at work 
among them. Dr. Dodd and Dr. Freeman estimated 
the total number of Tai people in Siam, the adjacent 
Shan States and southern China to be anywhere from 
ten to fourteen millions, occupying an extensive region 
equal to the combined areas of Texas and California 
and constituting one of the greatest, if not the greatest, 
unoccupied mission field of the world. Dr. Dodd con- 
tinued to travel among the northern Tai, where he was 
eagerly welcomed. On one trip 12,000 Gospel booklets 
were given to hands stretched out as voices shouted: 
“Give me also the sacred books!” He wrote: “We 
counted it one of the greatest opportunities of our 
lives.” He pleaded with the Board for a new station. 
In 1914 he wrote: “It is not only possible to go ahead 
now but it is imperative.” Early in 1915: “The fields 
are white unto the harvest. We cannot delay longer!” 
And again in December, 1915: “If the Board consents, 
we can go into the remote jungles, feeling as surely led 
as were Saul and Barnabas when they left Antioch for 
the ‘regions beyond.’ You all know of our intense con- 
viction of duty towards the North, and we desire to go 
in person if it be the Lord’s will.” 

The outcome was the founding in 1917 of a station 
at Chiengrung (Chinese Kiulungkiang) under the 
leadership of Dr. and Mrs. Dodd. The city was a six- 
teen days’ journey from the nearest station in Siam, 
with no roads, and with intervening mountain ranges 
which made the journey one of great hardship. The 





132 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





mission work quickly developed very promisingly in 
the vicinity of Yuankiang and Mosha, fourteen and 
sixteen days respectively, northeast of Chiengrung. 
The accounts of the journeys of the pioneers through 
tangled jungles and over almost impassable roads in 
one of the farthest away corners of the world read like 
stories of the long ago. Imagine a caravan of ninety 
ponies traveling for a month to carry the equipment for 
the new station. 


Another Stirring Journey 


Letters from the missionaries breathe the thrill of 
this great pioneer work in our own day. Charles E. 
Park, M.D., wrote: “I am willing to put my next three 
years into the development of the new work here even 
though my resignation on account of poor health has 
been accepted by our Board. Mrs. Park and I have 
given ourselves anew to the work here and are now 
planning a tour of two new openings in the northern 
part of this field. We are packing with the intention 
of being on the road about two months, stopping wher- 
ever the work shows most progress and remaining \ 
there as long as favorable development continues. We 
go on an errand that is one of the most urgent and in- 
teresting imaginable. Over a thousand converts dur- 
ing the past year! No written language! No religion 
but spirit worship! We go without a definite place to 
stop or house to live in. The people, in the eyes of 
civilization, are uncouth, unmannerly and immoral ; but 





PIONEER EXPERIENCES 133 





can they be condemned when we consider the lack of 
incentive caused by the years of evil environment? 

“In the province of Yunnan, China, seven days to 
the southwest of Yunnanfu, the capital, in a deep trough 
between high mountains, lies the Tai Ya valley through 
which the Red River flows. It is forty days’ continuous 
journey from Chiengmai, Siam, from where most of 
our evangelists come, and it is seventeen days from 
Chiengrung. Mrs. Callender, Charles Royal and I ar- 
rived in the Tai Ya country January 14, after a journey 
of twenty-six days, including stops. Including evan- 
gelists, carriers, muleteers, servants and Chinese escorts 
there were over seventy of us. The people have begun 
to believe in the Gospel. Many families turned from 
demons and accepted Christ instead. Whole villages 
have turned to the Lord. The work has spread into 
the Ya district, two days north, where we now have 
seventeen villages of converts. Altogether there are 
over 1,000 converts, including children, in both districts, 
and other districts are asking us to come.” 

Since these districts are not in Siam but in China, 
and are more accessible from the Chinese side, the 
Board, January 2, 1923, constituted the field a separate 
Mission, calling it the Yunnan Mission after the name 
of the province, and relating it to the Missions in China. 
Its further history therefore does not belong to the 
history of Siam, but we should never forget that the 
pioneer work in this field was done by Siam mission- 
aries who laid the foundations in a neglected and iso- 
lated region where climatic and other difficulties have 





134 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





proved to be great. Meantime, the heroic and inde- 
fatigable Dr. Dodd, whose explorations and per- 
sistence and self-sacrifice opened up this field and 
gave the home Church no rest until it was occupied, 
passed away October 18, 1919, at the age of sixty-two, 
worn out by the toil and strain of his strenuous life. 
His widow has edited the rich mass of manuscript ma- 
terial that he left, added to it out of her own experience 
as his constant helpmeet, and, with the sympathetic 
assistance of the Rev. Dr. John Frederick Hinkhouse, 
has published it under the title, “The Tai Race.” 
Missionaries like those mentioned in this chapter 
have given, and others are now giving, their lives for 
the evangelization of Siam “for Jesus’ sake.” They 
have what James Lane Allen calls that “stark audacity 
of faith, that burning spiritual heroism, which inspire 
men to wander through the wilderness, carrying from 
cabin to cabin, through darkness and snow and storm, 
the lonely banner of the Christ, and preaching the Gos- 
pel of everlasting peace to those who have never 
known any peace on earth.” ‘Was ever such a ro- 
mance!” exclaimed Sylvester Horne. “Was ever love 
exalted to such a passion! Was ever in the human 
soul so unquenchable a fire!” agi 


The Missionary at Work 





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Vit iy avi Seah lahat sn yy (as ye ay biNihe 
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in f ‘Aye ay) A: ie 
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as yj ry ie My ri 4 re ‘ Poel 


a ey 


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no Fy aay 
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CHAPTER VI 
THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 


A toilsome journey on elephants through the jun- 
gles had brought us to Saturday night with the 
weary ejaculation: “Now we can have a day of 
rest!” The next morning we slept late; but the 
missionaries did not. They spent an hour before 
breakfast in a neighboring village, distributing 
tracts and inviting the people to come to a service 
at our camp at ten o’clock. It was an impressive 
service, under a spreading bo tree, with the mighty 
forest about us, monkeys curiously peering through 
the tangled vines, the huge elephants browsing the 
bamboo tips behind us, and the wondering people 
sitting on the ground, while one of the missionaries 
_ told the deathless story of redeeming love. The 
other missionary, Dr. McGilvary, was not present. 
Seventy-four years old though he then was, he had 
walked three miles under a scorching sun to an- 
other village, and was preaching there. And we 
said: “If that is the way the missionaries rest, what 
do they do when they work?” 

The average Christian in America may find it dif- 
ficult to visualize’ the missionary at work. Some 
glimpses of the life of that outstanding missionary, 
Eugene P. Dunlap, will give an idea of what our 
representatives in Siam do. 


135 


136 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


In Journeyings Oft 

Dr. Dunlap was an indefatigable itinerator. He 
spent a large proportion of his time in country 
preaching. Siam is not an easy country in which to 
itinerate. Until near the end of his missionary serv- 
ice, there was no railway in that part of Siam which 
constituted his special field. Nor were there any 
wagon roads; nothing but mere paths, usually rough 
ones at that. He traveled on elephants, on ponies, 
and afoot, through vast jungles, over mountains, 
and across rivers swarming with crocodiles. The 
climate is hot, humid, and debilitating. Such trop- 
ical diseases as cholera, dysentery, and malignant 
malaria lurk on every hand.. Mosquitoes swarm in 
millions, and the jungles through which he traveled, 
and in which night sometimes overtook him, abound 
in tigers, serpents, wild elephants, and various other 
unpleasant prowlers. But nothing could daunt the 
zeal of this devoted missionary in taking the Gospel 
to people who had never heard it. Note the follow- 
ing extracts from his letters: 

“We spend about one month of the year in our 
house. The remainder of the year we lodge in boats, 
Buddhist temples, market places, bungalows, bam- 
boo huts, courthouses, and the homes of the people. 
There are no inns, no hotels, in the interior of Siam. 
In all our itinerating field we do not own a lodging 
- place, and yet we have never had to sleep on the 
ground or outdoors but once. That speaks well for 
the hospitality of Siam’s people. For weeks at a 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 137 


time we do not see a chair, bedstead or table; Siam- 
ese homes, as a rule, do not have these uncomfort- 
able things. When we are their guests, we, like 
our host, sit, eat, and sleep on the floor. 

“We proceeded up the river one day to a point 
where we had to get smaller canoes, for the stream 
became narrow, very rocky, and the current swift. 
On the second day we reached another large settle- 
ment. We disposed of many good books to the peo- 
ple, and cared for a large number of sick, among 
them several officials. We were glad to see many 
of them get clear of the fever, which was epidemic. 
Here we had hoped to get elephants for our party 
and baggage, but could secure only three. When I 
tell you that we carried more than two thousand 
books and tracts, five cases of medicines, a stere- 
opticon outfit, clothing for six months, camp outfit, 
provisions, cooking utensils, beds, etc., you will 
know that we had no small amount of baggage. The 
elephant that we were to ride had such a bad tem- 
per that we were afraid to mount him, so I said: 
‘Wife, what shall we do?’ With her usual courage 
she answered by taking off her shoes to wade the 
first stream, and said: ‘Let us walk.’ And walk we 
did for thirty miles, through jungles, over moun- 
tains, through streams, and broad plains. On the 
second day we reached a camping place, and were 
soon surrounded by people eager for medicines, and 
to listen to the teachings, to whom we ministered 
until after dark. There, for the first time on our 


138 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


touring, we slept on the ground; we were so weary 
that we rested as well as though we had been in 
comfortable home beds. The next morning, we 
secured elephants for ourselves and baggage, and 
after one day’s ride we reached the headwaters of 
the Panga River. We were glad to exchange ele- 
phants for canoes. This was the seventh time that 
we had crossed this peninsula. We were able to 
reach many places never before reached by the 
Christian missionary. In this six months’ tour we 
traveled on ten steamers, twenty elephants, numer- 
ous buffalo carts and canoes, and walked long dis- 
tances without serious mishap. For the greater part 
of the time we were in the heart of the Peninsula, 
cut off from all communication with the outside 
world; no telegrams, no newspapers, and no post- 
offices. We have learned to do without them. 


The Joy of the Seeker of Men 


With faithful and loving ministries like these, the 
good missionary and his wife were unceasingly oc- 
cupied. No opportunity to testify for Christ was 
slighted. We have never known a Christian worker 
who had greater joy in his ministry. His letters and 
reports fairly glow with it. We could quote scores 
of sentences like the following: 

“There was great joy in telling the precious stories 
of our Lord to those who had never heard. To at- 
tend upon the poor little feverish children of the 
homes, and see a large number recover was a delight 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 139 





to our hearts. . . . Our daily services with the 
twelve disciples of this island were precious indeed, 
and we had the joy, too, of baptizing several other 
islanders and a number of little children. None of 
the tradesmen knew about Jesus. They were 
friendly, and listened very closely to our stories 
about the Saviour of sinful men. It was a pleasure 
to place His precious Gospel in their hands, and 
know that they would carry it to distant homes. In 
this settlement most of the people had never heard 
the Gospel. It was a joy to publish the Glad Tidings 
to them, and the night was well spent in showing 
them the Bible pictures by means of the stereopticon, 
. . . I was glad to minister to so many sufferers as we 
passed along. ‘Jesus went about doing good.’ Let us 
follow in His steps. Some roughing it, ’tis true; but 
the joys of the work held us over the rough places.” 

He journeyed by sea as wellas land. Many years 
ago, friends in Kalamazoo, Michigan, presented him 
with a schooner which he called “The Kalamazoo.” 
It was 65 feet in length, 12 in beam and seven in depth, 
with three masts Chinese rigged. In this boat he 
and his equally devoted wife and a few Siamese 
attendants made long journeys along the coast line 
and among the adjacent islands, carrying the Gos- 
pel to peoples who could not have been reached 
through the pathless jungles which bordered their 
villages. This part of his itinerating also brought 
him many interesting experiences. He wrote: “We 
travel in the mission schooner ‘Kalamazoo’ from two 





140 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





to four months of the year; also by coast steamer, 
often going deck passage because there are no cabins. 
During our annual tour on the east coast of the Gulf of 
Siam, we stopped in all the principal harbors on the 
way. We sailed about four hundred miles, traveled in 
canoes about one hundred miles up the creeks and 
rivers, and took long walks over the plains to visit in- 
land villages. We found here and there a good number 
of people who were believing in God as the result of 
teaching on former tours, and the reading of Christian 
books, and were praying to Him.” 

Bits of humor often illuminated his letters. After 
a nerve-racking experience in a bullock cart over 
rocks and ruts, he good-naturedly wrote: “The jolt- 
ing keeps us from having dyspepsia.” Of another 
tour, he says: 

“We dismissed our elephants and spent five days 
in a border town. On the Sabbath I preached in 
the courthouse, which was our lodging place. The 
people of this settlement ‘were the most indolent 
set that we have seen in Siam. Even money could 
not persuade them to hull rice for our party, and 
the question of food grew serious. Seeing the con- 
dition of their little children, I prepared a lot of 
worm powders, which I handed to the mothers with 
directions. The remedy worked so effectually that 
each of the mothers out of gratitude prepared a 
large bowl of beautiful white rice for the mission- 
ary table. This is not the first time that we have 
‘wormed’ our way into the hearts of Siam’s people.” 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 141 


The Power of a Devoted Life 

He was personally known to and held in high 
esteem by the King. His relations were. particu- 
larly close with the father of the present sovereign, 
who frequently counselled with him. We were told 
in Bangkok that Dr. Dunlap had easier access to the 
Royal Palace than anyone else in Siam outside of 
the members of the Cabinet, and that the King and 
his Ministers frequently summoned him to confer- 
ences. They knew that this missionary, through his 
extensive travels in various parts of the country, 
knew conditions in Siam better than anybody else, 
and they knew too that he was not only intelligent 
and wise, but absolutely unselfish, seeking nothing 
for himself, and thinking only of good for the people 
to whom he had consecrated his life. He never com- 
promised his missionary message or convictions. He 
spoke plainly of current evils. The royal decree of 
January, 1905, ordering the abolition of gambling 
concessions everywhere outside of Bangkok, where 
the question involved the revenue in relation to im- 
port duties which could not be changed without the 
consent of other governments, was largely due to 
his influence. In his itinerating tours, he made it a 
rule to visit prisons and to observe sanitary condi- 
tions. Some of the credit for the prison reforms in 
Siam belongs to him. In his report of one of his 
long tours, he wrote: 

“In Ban Don, the largest market town of this coast, 
our hearts were made sad by the ravages of that 


142 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 
dread disease, Asiatic cholera. One day, seven died 
in the prison. The Governor sent for me and re- 
quested me to try to find the cause of the spread of 
the disease. I found the prison in good sanitary 
condition, but traced the trouble to the fact that 
the prisoners, while out on public works, were 
drinking the filthy river water, and recommended 
that all drinking water be thoroughly boiled and the 
prisoners permitted to drink that alone when out at 
work. In a few days, the disease disappeared en- 
tirely. Thus, humanly speaking, many a poor pris- 
oner’s life was saved.” 


“This Helpless God” 


An interesting incident is recalled in a letter from 
another missionary in Siam. “It was interesting to see 
one of Mrs. Dunlap’s callers at Trang, the son of the 
first convert in this southern region. He had been a 
devout Buddhist. One day while trying to repair an 
old household god, the thought came; ‘How can this 
helpless god do me any good? It cannot take care of 
itself.’ Then he looked at his own hands and the 
thought came that they must have had a Creator. He 
caller his wife and told her that he could no longer 
worship dumb, helpless idols. He put them away and 
set apart a room where they went each day to worship 
the Great Spirit, the Creator of all things. Later, an 
Old Testament portion came into his hands. ‘This tells 
of the true God I worship!’ Dr. Dunlap rejoiced to 
teach and to baptize him and his family.” 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 143 


Dr. Dunlap has passed from the scene of his earthly 
labors, but the work of itinerating goes on at every 
station of the Mission. A recent letter vividly de- 
scribes a tour among the Lao villages in northern 
Siam. 


A Raft Trip on the ‘‘Prairie Schooner”’ 


“We have just returned from a tour in the province. 
At Cha Home we have a Christian community and 
a little chapel on the bank of the river. That is where 
we lived during our stay. The Christians here are 
mostly of one family. There is old grandfather, who 
has a wooden leg, his eight children, his grand children, 
and great-grand children; altogether seventy-six souls. 
Up near the head waters of our river Wung, I found 
very promising conditions. The persecution of many 
years has changed to interest and inquiry. One family 
of seven was baptized, and among the inquirers are 
the head men of several villages, the chief priests in the 
temples, and a spirit doctor. On the homeward trip, 
we traveled by bamboo rafts. We were a party of 
fourteen, counting the poleman; and we had our sup- 
plies and equipment to carry back. From the little 
chapel in Cha Home to our door in Lampang is a four- 
day voyage. There were many sandbars to push the 
raft across, many teak logs to circumnavigate, and 
many half hidden rocks and snags to guard against. 
There were also a few rapids to add excitement, espe- 
cially when hemmed in by the teak logs, of which there 
were thousands piled along the banks. We had to 





144 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





work hard and fast to keep from bumping against 
them. At one place we passed four wild elephants. 
One was spouting mud over itself and another crossed 
the river just ahead of the raft; the polemen were 
rather nervous for a while. We passed a colony of 
monkeys on the high cliffs. A big snake swam out to 
get onto the raft, but the polemen beat it off with their 
poles and finally killed it. In the evenings hundreds 
of water buffaloes came down to drink and wallow in 
the river, often blocking the channel so that we had 
to drive them out before we could go on. If I could 
only describe the birds and the flowers and the great 
blossoming trees, it would add considerable color to 
this narrative. Bamboo, palms, cotton trees with large 
red blossoms, teak trees, great banks of trailing vines 
covered with pink or purple flowers, cliffs three hun- 
dred feet high and shelving over the river, a solid rock 
cavern just at the bend of the river, and hundreds of 
things that are native only to the tropics, made this a 
trip of unusual fascination. We had our meals and 
our beds on the covered raft called ‘Prairie Schooner,’ 
except in the evenings when we set our table out on the 
sandbar, with a campfire, and we closed the day with 
a chapel service.” 


Ways of Proclaiming the Gospel 
The usual methods of missionary work in Siam are: 
(1) Evangelistic—the preaching of the Gospel, in ser- 
mons wherever congregations can be gathered, in con- 
versations with little groups of people, and in per- 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 145 





sonal work with individuals in homes and schools and 
hospitals; (2) Educational—gathering boys and girls 
into schools, giving them a modern education under 
Christian auspices, using the Bible as one of the text 
books, having daily prayers, and seeking not only to 
develop the minds of the pupils but to lead them to 
Christ and to train them for Christian service; (3) 
Literary—translating the Bible and Christian books, 
writing and circulating tracts and periodicals; (4) 
Social—combating vice and endeavoring, by the appli- 
cation of Gospel principles, to improve the low moral 
and social conditions; and last but not least, (5) Medi- 
cal—following the example of the Great Physician in 
healing the diseases and alleviating the pains of people 
among whom ignorance, superstition and unsanitary 
customs have taken fearful toll of health and life. 
Patients hear about the divine Healer of souls from the 
missionary physician and his assistants. James W. 
McKean, M.D., of Chiengmai, exemplified the feeling 
of the typical medical missionary when he wrote: 
“While we recognize the power of medical practice in 
softening prejudice, winning friends and often in win- 
ning souls into the Kingdom, yet we are constantly 
made to feel that only the Spirit of God can touch and 
change the heart. Will not our friends at home pray 
more earnestly for all medical missionaries, that they 
may be men and women filled with the Holy Spirit, 
bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, that thereby a 
greater number of their patients may be brought to 
Christ.” 





146 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Evangelistic Work 

Much has been said on preceding pages of this essen- 
tial form of missionary effort, particularly in connec- 
tion with the labors of Dr. McGilvary and Dr. Dunlap. 
It is pressed everywhere in the Mission and at all sea- 
sons. The presentation of the Gospel, in one form or 
another, is the main occupation of the missionaries, 
native evangelists and Bible women. 

One of the Bangkok churches has a particularly in- 
teresting history. Several years ago, an influential 
Siamese nobleman became interested in Christianity. 
After varied spiritual experiences, he was drifting away 
from Christ when his only son suddenly died. A mis- 
sionary gently told the sorrowing parents of the Good 
Shepherd who, finding that a sheep would not follow 
Him, took the lamb in His arms. The father’s heart 
was deeply moved. He sketched an outline of the inci- 
dent and had a visiting artist paint it. He showed us 
the picture in his residence—a Shepherd with a face 
kindly and grave, a face like unto that of the Son of 
Man, carrying a lamb on his bosom, while afar off two 
sheep, which had been walking away from the Shep- 
herd, were, with wistful eyes, turning around to follow 
their loved one. Thereupon the nobleman in grateful 
recognition of this spiritual call, gave 10,000 ticals to 
build a church. Something was added by other Chris- 
tians, and a beautiful house of worship was dedicated. 

The work of the Mission includes the Chinese as 
well as the Siamese, the former being found in all the 
schools and hospitals and many of the churches. Sev- 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 147 


eral churches are composed of Chinese and have Chi- 
nese pastors. Chinese who were converted in the 
capital, and afterward moved to other places, have 
strengthened the Christian communities to which they 
have gone. The blending of the two races, however, 
is such, almost every Chinese having a Siamese wife 
and half-caste children, that it is not easy to separate 
them in Christian work. Difference in language causes 
some difficulty in the first generation of Chinese immi- 
grants, but it usually disappears in the second. 

A missionary writes: “We sailed from Bandon over 
to the Island of Samooie. A Siamo-Chinese passenger 
asked me to tell him about the Christian religion. I 
opened my picture rolls and began quietly to tell him the 
story of Jesus. Many others gathered about to listen. 
As we arrived at the bar at the mouth of the river too 
late to cross, we had to anchor Sunday and wait for 
the tide. This afforded leisure for passengers and 
crew and an opportunity for me to tell them the Mas- 
ter’s message. Many of our first converts are either 
Chinese or Siamo-Chinese. Many have Siamese wives 
and Siamo-Chinese children, a number of whom be- 
come Christians. Through these, we get, in time, a 
goodly number of their Siamese friends and relatives.” 


Educational Work 


Twelve years after Bangkok Station was opened, a 
Chinese Christian was authorized to “open a school for 
the sons of the Chinese.” This man was the father 
of Boon Boon Itt, who became a famous Christian 





148 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





leader. Mrs. Stephen Mattoon had opened a little day 
school a few weeks earlier, but this was merged with 
the other school which received the name of the Siamo- 
Chinese Boarding School. Later it was called the 
Bangkok Christian High School. Two Chinese boys 
completed a three-years’ course in 1855, and the mis- 
sionary wrote with mingled gratification and solicitude: 
“May the instructions which they have received not be 
wholly lost! Our work is surely one of faith. Oh, 
God, strengthen my faith!” His faith has been justi- 
fied for the School developed into the present Bangkok 
Christian College. Siamese opinion of the College is 
indicated by the gifts and fees referred to elsewhere 
and by the statement of a former Cabinet official that 
the Government would be glad to take into its employ 
every graduate that the College could turn out. Chris- 
tian character and training count in Siam as elsewhere. 

The Harriet House School for Girls in Bangkok has 
had a like experience. The influence of this school is 
very great. Fully half of its-pupils come from the 
families of noblemen. Several are royal princesses; 
others are daughters of governors and ministers to 
European capitals. At the time of our visit, all of the 
women teachers in the thirteen public government 
schools in the city were graduates of Harriet House, 
twelve of them being Christians. At the government 
examinations, the School elicited the outspoken admira- 
tion of the Prince Director General of Public Instruc- 
tion by excelling all other schools in the Kingdom, in- 
cluding the Queen’s Own College, in the proportion of 





SIAMESE CHRISTIAN WORKERS AND CONVERTS 





LITTLE TOTS OF JANE HAYES MEMORIAL SCHOOL, BANGKOK 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 149 


pupils who creditably passed the examinations. The 
School became so large and overcrowded under the 
efficient superintendency of Miss Edna S. Cole that, in 
1920, it was divided and the higher classes formed into 
the Wattana Wittaya Academy on a larger campus. 
Miss Cole, after forty-five years of highly capable 
service, was, at her own request, placed on the hon- 
orably retired list in 1923. 

In Chiengmai, the Prince Royal’s College for boys 
and the Girls’ High School are institutions of large and 
growing influence which are educating the brightest 
young men and women of the Lao and preparing them 
for efficient Christian service. Years ago, under the 
able presidency of the Rev. William Harris, Jr., the 
former outgrew its plant in the city and was moved to 
a spacious campus on the outskirts. The present King, 
then the Crown Prince, happened to be visiting in 
Chiengmai at the time, and cordially complied with a 
request to lay the cornerstone of the new main building 
and to give the institution a name. He was so favorably 
impressed with the excellence of its work that he was 
willing to lend his own title to it and he accordingly 
named it “The Prince Royal’s College.” The Girls’ 
High School has also had able superintendence and has 
had to obtain a larger and more modern plant than the 
one which it occupied for many years. 

In all these schools, each student is required to get 
into some game between the hours of five and six. 
Football is popular among the boys, and baseball and 
volley ball have also been introduced. Every morning 


150 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


for half an hour the entire school engages in drill as 
a setting up discipline. School is opened with divine 
worship each morning, and each class has a course of 
Bible study extending throughout the year. The teach- 
ers meet in weekly preparation for teaching the Sunday 
School lesson. Physical records are kept, and medical 
examinations on entrance often disclose incipient ma- 
laria so that quinine treatment is necessary. 

While the Mission has coordinated its schools with 
the government system by preparing courses of study 
conforming to the general order of the government 
codes, it has omitted none of the religious studies of 
its own course. Conformity to the government cur- 
riculum was desirable, as gratifying to the Siamese au- 
thorities who have shown themselves friendly to the 
mission schools, as keeping the Mission in touch with 
the educational movement in Siam, as bringing to the 
mission schools each year the high officials of the De- 
partment of Public Instruction to see the work, and 
particularly as opening to the graduates all avenues of 
public preferment. There was some question at first 
whether government recognition might be obtained at 
the cost of spiritual influence. The Mission was, of 
course, unwilling to make concessions which would 
hamper its freedom to teach the Bible and to lead pupils 
to Christ. No concessions, however, have been re- 
quired and the schools are uncompromisingly Christian. 

Mr. B. Carter Millikin, who visited Siam a few 
years ago, says that he was told by a high official that 
the Government would look with great favor on any 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 151 


efforts to push the mission schools forward in stan- 
dard or in grades, and particularly in normal work for 
training teachers; that such teachers as the Mission 
could train and spare from its own schools would be 
eagerly taken by the government schools at standard 
wages ; and that in cases where any considerable group 
of people in a village are Christians and wish to have 
their own school with Christian teacher and Christian 
teaching, they can do so and will be excused from pay- 
ing the local school tax on the ground that they are 
paying for their own local school. They can thus be 
conducted as Siamese enterprises on a plane which the 
people themselves can afford, and pupils .worthy of 
advancement can be given superior training later in 
mission schools at the larger centers. 

Mr. Millikin admirably defined as the purpose of 
mission schools: (1) To provide Christian education 
for Christian youth; (2) to win non-Christian boys and 
girls to Christ through education in a strongly Chris- 
tian atmosphere and by direct Christian instruction ; 
(3) to permeate Siamese society with Christian ideals 
and standards, frankly recognizing that there will be 
many students who will not be prepared to profess 
themselves Christians, but who will carry from their 
school experience the Christian viewpoint and an un- 
derstanding and sympathetic attitude toward Chris- 
tianity ; (4) to discover and to train Christian leaders, 
not only for the churches, schools and other such enter- 
prises, but for positions in government, business and 
professional life. 


152 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


Primary education, as a rule, is given in village 
schools under native Christian teachers with missionary 
supervision. The Mission feels that “no phase of our 
work has been more encouraging than these parochial 
schools. Organized on a self-supporting basis, buying 
their own supplies, collecting their own fees, paying 
their own teachers, and quite independent of the Mis- 
sion except for oversight, they approach the ideal 
toward which we are laboring in our mission work. 
Only an occasional boy or girl from the out-villages 
finds a way into the city boarding schools. But these 
parochial schools at the children’s homes bring educa- 
tion within the reach of all. Their spiritual influence 
upon our churches is great. Almost every child who 
learns to read and sing in the parochial schools means 
one more intelligent, interested worshipper in God’s 
house.” 

Mission schools occupy a unique position in Siam 
as the only Protestant Christian schools in the entire 
kingdom. They are educating the future leaders of 
Siam. Their graduates are already occupying influen- 
tial positions in many places. They are marked men 
and women in their respective communities. Protes- 
tantism has a distinct vantage ground in this work and 
should maintain it. Every child that is not educated by 
Protestant schools will be educated, if at all, either by 
French Roman Catholics, or by Buddhist monks in 
temple or government schools, the latter with few ex- 
ceptions being under Buddhist influence even when 
some of the teachers are personally Christian. In the 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 153 


mission schools, there is an effort to create a spiritual 
atmosphere and mould the characters of the pupils for 
Christ. We were told that in the northern stations “‘it 
is the exception for a boy or girl to graduate from our 
mission schools without having confessed Christ” and 
that conversions are frequent in most of the schools. 


Cleansing the Leper 


There are about 10,000 lepers in Siam. During the 
author’s visit he saw many of them wandering about 
the villages, begging. It never occurred to any Buddhist 
to do anything to alleviate the sufferings of this truly 
pitiable class, and for weary centuries, lepers were left 
to rot away and die uncared for. Then came the mis- 
sionary as the ambassador of the Great Physician who 
of old had compassion on the leper and touched him 
with healing hand. The prime mover in this gracious 
ministry was the medical missionary in Chiengmai, 
James W. McKean, M.D. There was an island in the 
river which had been used as a preserve for the pet 
elephant of the Governor of the Province. He was 
supposed to be a “Good Luck” elephant, but he was so 
ill-tempered that everyone was afraid of him. When 
hungry he broke into the native houses to feed upon 
the rice that he knew was kept there in great baskets. 
His depredations became so savage and dangerous that 
the people finally abandoned the island to him. When 
he died, Dr. McKean induced the Governor to set aside 
the island for a leper asylum. He caused it to be 





154 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





cleared and booths to be erected. Here he began mod- 
ern scientific treatment of lepers. The Siamese au- 
thorities were at first indifferent and skeptical, but 
gradually Dr. McKean succeeded in interesting them. 
Now, there is at Chiengmai a Leper Asylum with 250 
inmates. The place is spotlessly clean. Dr. McKean, 
in addition to his responsible duties as superintendent 
of the mission Hospital in the city, regularly visits the 
Asylum and superintends the work of his assistants who 
reside on the island. The use of chaulmoogra oil has 
done wonders for these stricken people and many have 
been sent back to their homes apparently entirely 
healed. 

The workers interest themselves in the souls as well 
as the bodies of these poor sufferers. The buildings in- 
clude a chapel. Religious services are regularly held, 
and evangelists read and explain the Bible and tell 
about the Great Physician of old who said to a leper: 
“Be thou clean.” The lepers are not Christians when 
they are received, but they become followers of Christ 
under the kindly ministries at the Asylum. Nearly all 
of the 250 patients are baptized Christians, thirty-seven 
having been baptized last year. A small allowance of 
40 stangs (sixteen and a half cents) a week is given 
to each inmate: Out of this tiny sum the lepers gladly 
give for Christian work. Last year they contributed 
426.71 ticals ($187.75), a great sum when one con- 
siders the scanty means of the donors. They distrib- 
uted it as follows: evangelistic work in Chiengmai, 15 
ticals; Siamese Red Cross Society, 40; Presbytery’s 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 155 


apportionment, 125; American Bible Society, 65; new 
airplane field Chiengmai, 11.71; American Mission to 
Lepers, 60; Lampang Church, 20; Russian Bible work, 
50; evangelistic work in Chiengrung, 40. 
There is no more moving sight in all the world than 
a communion service in this church for lepers in 
Chiengmai. A heart must be hard indeed that could 
not be touched by the sight of those maimed patients 
in all stages of an awful disease, but clean, neatly 
clad, and with a light in their faces which comes only 
to those who “looked unto Him and were radiant.” 
The expense of this gracious work, except for the 
salaries of the missionaries in charge, is met by the 
American Mission to Lepers which makes annual 
grants for this purpose. All friends of this pathetic 
class of sufferers should appreciate the work of that 
noble Mission which gladly cooperates with mission 
boards and missionaries in this Christlike work and 
without whose cooperation it could not be maintained. 
A School for Untainted Children of Leper Parents 
is also conducted by the Mission. Every care is exer- 
cised to prevent them from becoming contaminated 
and to give them an education under Christian auspices. 
We are glad to be able to add that the Siamese au- 
thorities, influenced by the example of Dr. McKean’s 
Asylum, have developed sympathetic interest. Febru- 
ary 13, 1923, the Minister of the Interior provided 
fifteen additional brick cottages for the Chiengmai 
Asylum, each cottage accommodating two persons. 
May 4, 1923, the Red Cross Leper Association in Bang~ 


156 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


kok was opened with ceremonies which were attended 
by the King and high officials. 


Mission Hospitals 


The whole medical work of the Mission is of special 
interest. Christ Himself set the example of ministering 
to the sick. Indeed, He cited among the proofs of His 
Messiahship that “the blind receive their sight, the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear.” Of 
His thirty-six recorded miracles, twenty-four were of 
physical healing, and there must have been scores of 
others, for we read that “all they that had any sick 
brought them unto Him, and He laid His hands on 
every one of them and healed them.” So medical work 
is an essential part of our Christian service in non- 
Christian lands. We cannot “pass by on the other side” 
those countless sufferers or shut our ears to their cries 
of agony. 

Non-Christian lands are lands of pain. All the dis- 
eases and injuries common in America, and others far 
more dreadful, are intensified by ignorance, supersti- 
tion, and insanitary conditions. An Oriental tour fills 
the mind with ghastly memories of sightless eyeballs, 
scrofulous limbs and festering ulcers. If our child is 
ill, our physician’s understanding of the case and its 
remedy, the sympathy of friends and the sweet com- 
forts of the Gospel, make the sick chamber a place of 
peace and probable recovery. But in most non-Chris- 
tian lands, illness is believed to be caused by a demon 
that has gotten into the body, and the treatment is an 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 157 





effort to expel it. Sometimes drums are beaten or 
horns blown beside the sufferer in the hope that they 
will frighten away the demon. At other times hot 
fires are built to scorch it out, and of course the fierce 
heat adds to the distress of the patient. 

The horrors of superstitious maltreatment of the 
sick and injured are relieved in many lands only by 
medical missionaries who walk through those regions 
of pain in the name and spirit of the Great Physician, 
cleansing foul ulcers, straightening deformed limbs, giv- 
ing light to darkened eyes, healing fevered bodies, rob- 
bing death of its sting and the grave of its victory and 
showing to weary multitudes that 


“Thy touch has still its ancient power, 
No word from Thee can fruitless fall.” 


No other phase of missionary work has done more to 
soften hearts and to open doors, no other been more 
fruitful in spiritual results.1 A princess suffering from 
dropsy was brought to the hospital at Lampang in a 
helpless condition. The family had expended their re- 
sources in seeking treatment for her. They had dis- 
posed of their residence on the theory that it was in- 
fested by evil spirits, the source of her malady. After 
extended treatment by the medical missionary, recovery 
was complete. She accepted Christ. Her rank and 
remarkable recovery created a profound impression 
favorable to the mission work. Many similar illustra- 
tions might be cited. Standing in one of those humble 


1“The Foreign Missionary,” by the same author, pp. 106-108. 


a EEE SEEU EEE 


158 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 
URI eM Ree Eee AS LOMA St te ee 
buildings and watching the tender ministries to suffer- 
ing, one feels sure that God loves that place and he re- 
joices that in Asia as well as in America, men may say: 
“The healing of His seamless dress 
Is by our bed of pain; 


We touch Him ‘in life’s throng and press, 
And we are whole again.” 


The Printed Page 


The Bangkok press, founded in 1861, was long the 
best equipped institution of the kind in Siam, and, with 
the exception of a few gifts, its entire plant was paid 
for out of its earnings. It published school and re- 
ligious books, myriads of tracts, a monthly magazine, 
and all the issues in Siam of the American Bible So- 
ciety, besides a great amount of job work for the Gov- 
ernment and private firms and individuals. It became 
advisable to close it in 1917, the development of com- 
mercial presses in Bangkok having enabled the Mission 
to have its printing done on practicable terms. It is 
not the policy of the Board and the Missions to com- 
pete unnecessarily with native business enterprises. 

The press at Chiengmai early became important as 
the only press in the world which had Lao type, so 
that it was long the sole means for giving the Bible and 
a Christian literature to the Lao-speaking people. A 
dozen native workmen were employed under the super- 
vision of a missionary, and though the equipment was 
limited, the press exerted a wide influence not only 
through its distinctive missionary publications but 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 159 


through the relations which it sustained to the officials, 
who had all their printing done by it. Vice and in- 
temperance could get no aid from the printed page 
among the Lao, for the Mission press would not print 
their advertisements. In recent years, the increasing 
use of the Siamese language in the northern provinces 
and the development of native commercial presses have 
considerably lessened the field of the press and made its 
work more difficult. 

The important place of the printed page in mission- 
ary work is indicated in the Mission’s last annual re- 
port which says that a large part of the evangelization 
of the people of Siam must be done from the printed 
Word. There are not sufficient Christian workers to 
reach all the people. The printed page can slip into a 
place where men would never be able to enter. The 
written language gets a hearing where the spoken word 
would not be heeded. We wish to make record of the 
far-reaching work done by the American Bible Society. 
Missionaries direct the work of many colporteurs in 
the city and country who are paid in part or entirely 
through the efficient Agent of the Bible Society, the 
Rev. Dr. Robert Irwin. This makes it possible for 
the Mission to use many more workers than it could 
otherwise engage. 


Social Service 
The effort to build stalwart character and to make 
possible a self-supporting Church renders it neces- 
sary to improve the industrial conditions of the na- 


160 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


tive Christians. Trades are taught in several of 
the boarding schools for boys, partly as a means of 
self-help for students whose parents are unable to 
meet the cost of educating their children, and partly 
to fit the boys for more efficient life after gradua- 
tion. It is not good for boys to be educated free, 
and there is no reason why they should be when 
they are able to work. A people whose dependence 
has been largely upon rice farming needed to be 
taught carpentering, cabinet work, printing, tailor- 
ing, shoe-making and blacksmithing ; and there was 
no one but missionaries to begin training in these 
trades. Students now make many of the seats, 
desks, and tables for the schools, much of the furni- 
ture used in the homes of the missionaries, and do 
a considerable part of the work of erecting new 
buildings. The presses at Bangkok and Chiengmai 
have trained their workmen, some of whom have set 
up small printing establishments of their own. In 
all of the schools for girls, sewing, cooking, house- 
keeping, and other domestic duties are taught. 
Habits of thrift are inculcated in adults as well as 
children. The author found in the capital “The 
Christian United Bank of Bangkok.” It is a savings 
bank which was started by an elder of the First 
Church on the advice of the Rev. Dr. John A. Eakin. 
Its president was the native pastor, its manager an 
elder, its treasurer a member of the Third Church, 
and all of its directors were Christians. The bank 
did not attempt to invest its funds, but by a mutu- 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 161 








ally satisfactory agreement placed them at interest 
with the local branch of the great Chartered Bank 
of India, Australia, and China. Within two years 
the depositors, nearly all of whom were Christians, 
had saved over 6,000 ticals, and as a check upon the 
temptation to draw their money and spend it un- 
wisely, they bound themselves by the condition that 
no sum could be withdrawn except on an order 
countersigned by the president (pastor) and man- 
ager (elder), who refused their approval unless they 
knew and approved the object. There is hope for 
a country that has Christians of that kind. 


Temperance 

Total abstinence is inculcated by precept and ex- 
ample in all the churches of the Mission. Several 
temperance societies have been organized by the 
Christian young people and are actively at work. 

Mr. Frank L. Snyder writes that while he was 
on an itinerating tour, word came from Bangkok 
that the head official on a large island had been 
given a title by the King. The Chinese merchants 
of the island gave him a dinner to celebrate the 
honor. Strong drink is always a special feature of 
such dinners. All the church members recently re- 
ceived were leading men in the little village, and 
they protested against liquor being served. When 
they were out-voted, they politely refused to take 
part. They called on the head official, paid him 
their respects, and stayed away from the dinner. 





162 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





The official learned why they stayed away, com- 
mended their action, and urged that all men would 
profit by keeping away from drink. This commen- 
dation and their firm stand made a profound im- 
pression on the community. 


The Hookworm and the Tannery 


There is an interesting story here which has far- 
reaching significance. Tropical peoples have long 
been considered physically and mentally inferior to 
the more vigorous peoples of the temperate zone. 
An Italian research expert discovered that one of 
the causes of this condition was the hookworm. The 
International Health Board of the Rockefeller 
Foundation sent representatives to study the hook- 
worm in various lands, including Siam. The med- 
ical missionaries eagerly welcomed them and co- 
operated with them. Tests disclosed that 71.7 per 
cent of the children in a certain school were in- 
fested with hookworm, that in another school the 
percentage was 94, and that other classes of the 
population averaged 75 per cent. When proper 
remedies were applied an amazing change resulted. 
Children who had been listless, lacking in ambition, 
and apparently unable or unwilling to study, became 
alert and interested in their work. It is not im- 
probable that the campaign of education conducted 
by The International Health Board and the medical 
missionaries may result in a remarkable transfor- 
mation of tropical peoples in several foreign lands, 


THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 163 


as well as in the mountains in the southern states of 
America. 

The missionaries found, however, that after a 
time the old lassitude returned because the children 
had again become infested with the hookworm. The 
reason was that the hookworm enters the body 
through the feet, and in the warm climate of Siam 
children usually go barefooted. It became evident 
that no permanent progress could be made unless 
the children could be shod. But there were no 
shoes, except a few expensive imported ones in 
Bangkok, and no leather to make them. Accord- 
ingly, one of the missionaries, the Rev. Dr. Howell 
S. Vincent, then of Lampang, learned how to tan 
leather, and, with the cordial approval of the Board, 
started a tannery. The natives were then taught how 
to make shoes out of the leather the tannery produced. 
They soon became adept in the trade and made excel- 
lent shoes. This was an object lesson to the Siamese. 
After the tannery was well established, a local com- 
pany was formed and the plant turned over to it. 
This was in accord with the policy of the mission- 
aries and the Board to teach native peoples to do as 
much as possible for themselves and to take over 
enterprises as soon as they are able to do so. 


The Boon Itt Memorial Institute 
The Boon Itt Memorial Institute is the center of 
a work for young men. The Rev. Boon Boon Itt was 
a Siamese of mixed Cambodian and Chinese blood. 


164 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


who was taken to America in his boyhood by Dr. 
House, and educated at Williams College and Au- 
burn Theological Seminary. After graduation with 
credit, he returned to Siam and engaged in Chris- 
tian work. As the head of his “clan” he was widely 
known in the capital. Young men liked him and 
resorted to him for advice. The Government re- 
peatedly offered him lucrative posts, and a trading 
corporation in the north sought him at a salary of 
$4,000. But he preferred to remain a minister of 
Christ on $650 and a humble house. His death from 
cholera in 1903 was greatly lamented. The Siamese 
raised funds for a site for a memorial institute for 
young men, and an American committee, headed by 
his classmates at Williams and Auburn, erected the 
building. Until 1924, the Institute was superin- 
tended by a missionary; but in that year it was 
taken over by a local committee of Siamese Chris- 
tians who are now conducting it. 


A Model Village 


At Chiengmai, Dr. McKean is trying the experi- 
ment of a model Christian village. There are eight- 
een small home plots and a school and church site. 
For a small annual rental a family can secure a plot. 
If they live in accordance with the simple require- 
ments of the village, and as Christians should, at 
the end of ten years they get a deed for the prop- 
erty. They cannot, however, sell to anyone whom 
the elders of the Chiengmai church do not approve. 





THE MISSIONARY AT WORK 165 





This chapter on the work of the missionary may 
well close with the words of the Hon. Hamilton 
King, former American Minister to Siam. After a 
long tour in the northern provinces, he wrote: “The 
distinctive elements that enter into the success of 
this Mission are these: There is but one denomi- 
nation in the field; they show respect for those 
things that are sacred to the Siamese; they have 
the wisdom to let the Siamese govern their own 
people. I have great respect for the men and wo- 
men I met in this work. They are larger than their 
work, They are broader than their Church. They 
magnify their profession. They are planting for 
the future. They count not on the number of so- 
called conversions alone but on their success in 
planting pregnant ideas in this people’s lives as well, 
ideas pregnant with a better civilization and a bet- 
ter national life. Planting seed that is sure to revo- 
lutionize this government, they leave matters civil 
entirely to the authorities that be. They make 
friends with the officials by making of their people 
better subjects. They are clean, cheerful and whole- 
some in their lives, without cant, spiritually minded 
in the best sense, and yet withal they are people of 
this world. If this is missionary work I believe 
Pa ag 


es) a POT \ Sain 
BS cad = iahatts pith. din ehets 


om 


: i“ 


Re | , s Ge Wy, Ale eth, La aint ‘me inh rad 


idliaihiey, Dake: dion eae ilyetas chy sre z 
st seen sendy ane 

aoe | 

Le tals 

Pale 





Methods and Results 








CHAPTER VII 
METHODS AND RESULTS 
The Siamese Church at Work 


A recent report describes the celebration of the 
anniversary of the birth of Chiengmai Station in 
1867. It pictures Dr. and Mrs. Daniel McGilvary 
on the porch of their little sala explaining their pres- 
ence to the curious, dispensing medicines to the sick, 
talking in the market, visiting the poor in their 
homes, and calling upon the prince and princess in 
the palace. Instead of the few curious listeners of 
that early day, there is now a large church which 
has sent out numerous colonies and which maintains 
evangelists and primary school teachers in various 
places. The growth has been largely due to the 
Christians themselves. Whole families have accepted 
Christ and have won their relatives and friends. The 
improvised dispensary on a porch, where Dr. Mc- 
Gilvary had to coax the sick to take the foreign 
quinine, has become the fine McCormick Hospital 
with its airy rooms and white beds and shining oper- 
ating rooms, while four dispensaries serve thou- 
sands, and the Training School for Nurses prepares 
Lao young women for helpful cooperation. The 
few girls that Mrs. McGilvary gathered in her home 
to teach how to read and write are now grand- 
mothers who see 150 bright-faced girls in a hand- 


167 


168 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


some new building. The Boys’ School, with its few 
pupils in a poor little house, is now the influential 
Prince Royal’s College, with fine buildings on a 
palm-shaded campus, over 200 students and scores 
of graduates. 

The annual report of the station, Mrs. Howard 
Campbell writes, shows that 200 new members had 
been added to the church, 160 babies had been bap- 
tized, 37 workers had been sent out for long or 
short periods into far fields for evangelistic work, 
two native ministers had been ordained, and an in- 
creasing amount of real work was being carried 
on by unpaid workers in country districts. Imme- 
diately after Christmas the “New Rice Thanksgiv- 
ing” services started throughout the whole twenty- 
three churches, and many services were held in 
homes as well. At the end of the rice season, the 
Christian families bring in their tithes of rice, or its 
equivalent in money. Each village church makes an 
event of it. A bit of money is in hand; new clothes 
are bought; a church feast is planned; repairs are 
made on chapel buildings and on the woven bamboo 
fences surrounding the church yard. The chapels 
are decorated with flowers and greens. A tempor- 
ary booth is put up on the church lawn, with a roof 
of palm branches, and here the Christians eat the 
dinner they have brought with them, many having 
walked for miles. The service usually opens with 
thanksgiving for God’s love in providing for them, 
then their gifts are brought in, and there is happi- 





METHODS AND RESULTS 169 


ness on the faces of all who are giving back some- 
thing to the Lord. 

The second week in January was observed as a 
week of prayer, with cottage meetings held all over 
the city, sometimes as many as eight at the same 
hour. In one suburb, there was a daily meeting at 
each Christian home, beginning at half-past four 
o’clock and going from house to house till bedtime. 
Refreshments were served, so that no one had to go 
home for the evening meal. This was kept up day 
after day till a meeting had been held in every Chris- 
tian home. This was all done without any help from 
the missionaries except for an occasional visit. 

In the conference at Lakawn during our visit, one 
of the elders said to his fellow Christians: “To 
whom are we Lao people indebted for the knowl- 
edge of the gospel? To American Christians. Who 
must evangelize the rest of the Lao people and the 
mountain tribes? We must do it, not depending 
upon American men or money. Why should we 
hoard our money? Many say they wish to leave it 
to their children. But often it is a curse to those 
children, not a blessing. Let us freely give it to the 
spread of the Gospel.” 

An example for some church officers in America 
was given by the Lao elders of Muangtung, an out- 
station of Chiengrai. “Two elders,” a missionary 
wrote, “were sent out by the Church at three differ- 
ent times and spent from four to six weeks each 
time. We attempt to put the burden of evangeliza- 





170 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





tion upon the Lao elders and every one that is bap- 
tized. We are not theorizing; we are quietly put- 
ting our convictions of right method to the test. 
More than that, the native Lao Church is under- 
taking active work in the regions beyond. A small 
struggling church of fifty members, which had just 
finished building a neat chapel without outside help, 
contributed two months’ support of a Lao minister 
to preach the Gospel in French Lao territory. A 
small Christian Endeavor Society has assumed sup- 
port of an evangelist in the French field. A Wom- 
an’s Foreign Missionary Society of fifteen members 
gave out of their poverty sufficient to pay the ex- 
penses of a native minister for two months in 
evangelistic work.” 

Two young men at Nan, Boon Tah and Luang, 
agreed to carry the good news to the people farther 
north. The church solemnly set them apart as 
evangelists. Ten days took them to Chiengmai and 
eighteen days more to Chiengrung Station. They 
were gone four months. Some days they traveled 
through a wilderness without meeting a soul. One 
day, as they were without food, one of the men be- 
came exhausted, and, lying down beside the road, 
said he could go no further. His companion knelt 
and prayed for him. Two men came by, but they 
could give only a mouthful or two of rice. Later, 
several travelers passed and heaped their baskets 
with rice. In reporting, Boon Tah exclaimed: “So 
you see how God answers prayers!” 


Meelis Ee SUPE TEs sae ELAS CEA aie aA a a Uke) | 
METHODS AND RESULTS 171 





Luang, who spent over two years in Chiengrung, is a 
great-grandson of a Lao martyr of 1868. From time to 
time word came from the distant station to the mis- 
sionaries: “Luang is making good in every line of 
work.” In 1921 he was given a four months’ vaca- 
tion as a reward for faithful service and, with his 
wife and child, returned to his old home. He had 
journeyed to Chiengmai through the forest, twenty- 
eight days on foot, over mountains, through tiger 
jungles and across broad plains under the fierce sun 
of the tropics. One Sunday morning to a full church 
in Chiengmai, Luang told the story of the pioneer 
days in Chiengrung Station. He spoke of hindrances 
to the work in the habits and morals of the people. 
His account was like a chapter out of the early his- 
tory of Lao Mission, for there, as in Chiengmai in 
the beginning, the first Christians are called witches. 
He mentioned cases of persecution, the hardhearted- 
ness of a high official who had his sick slave carried 
to the cemetery and left there to die; the general 
indifference to the needs of the sick. But he also 
mentioned the readiness in every village to hear the 
Good News. “Oh, the people are more eager to 
know the Gospel than my own people.” 

At the expiration of his vacation, Luang started 
on the long return journey with his family, arriving 
in safety at Chiengrung. His addresses in various 
places were inspiring and brought immediate re- 
sponse in renewed contributions for the evangeliza- 
tion of the Tai in the far north. 





172 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





We wish that we could say that this evangelistic 
zeal characterizes the average Christian throughout 
the country. If it did, the churches of Siam would 
be the premier churches of the world. The zeal that 
the preceding pages have described is far from uni- 
versal in Siam. Many professed followers of Christ 
do not realize their duty to bring others to Him. But 
there is hope for a Church which includes even a few 
score of such eager and self-sacrificing disciples as 
those that have been mentioned. 


The Trend Toward Autonomy 


It is not surprising, but quite to be expected, that 
Christians should respond, even more quickly than 
their non-Christian neighbors, to the new national spirit 
that the King has done so much to develop. Chris- 
tianity quickens the mind, broadens the outlook, stirs 
men out of their lethargy, and awakens ambition. The 
Christian is a more intelligent and patriotic citizen. The 
change of attitude is as noticeable in the Church as in 
the State. The Christians do not acquiesce in foreign 
leadership with such docility as they formerly did. The 
growing spirit of independence is finding expression in 
a demand for a larger share in the administration of 
the churches and schools, and in a strengthened move- 
ment toward the formation of an independent national 
Church. The two presbyteries are now connected with 
the Synod of New York and, through it, are under the 
jurisdiction of the General Assembly in America. It 
is, therefore, proposed to form a third presbytery and 


Se 


—— ES 


METHODS AND RESULTS 173 
Je RI areca TSE RSL Rs Se A et 
to organize the three into a self-governing Synod. 
This is an encouraging sign which should have our 
hearty good will. It ‘is in direct line with one of the 
avowed aims of the missionary enterprise—the estab- 
lishment of an indigenous Church. 


Self-Support 


Self-support is a problem everywhere. It is easier 
to find workers than it is to find money to pay for them. 
Churches that demand independence are not always 
ready to foot the bills. And yet it is a fundamental 
axiom of missionary policy that the aim of missions 1s 
to establish an indigenous Church, which shall be self- 
supporting as well as self-propagating and self-govern- 
ing.t In the early days of missionary work, the Siamese 
were so indifferent to education, so ignorant of medi- 
cine, and so suspicious of foreign ideas and methods 
that the only way the missionaries could induce parents 
to send their children to Christian schools, and patients 
to submit to hospital treatment, was to make every- 
thing free. Indeed missionaries sometimes deemed it 
necessary to give each boy a few small coins in order 
to persuade him to come. The Government itself was 
forced to do this among a people who, at that time, had 
little interest in the education of their children. When 
it first opened its schools in the northern towns, it 
sometimes paid pupils ten ticals a month to induce them 
to attend. 





1cf for a fuller discussion of the missionary aim the author’s “The 
Why and How of Foreign Missions,” Chapter VI. 


174 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


This situation was gradually improved, and in 
time people saw that boys who had been trained in 
mission schools had superior efficiency and could 
command higher salaries in government offices and 
business firms. The success of medical missionaries 
in healing the sick and performing operations made 
a profound impression. The missionaries and the 
Board, too, feared the pauperizing effect of a free 
financial policy and began to insist that parents 
should pay at least something for the education of 
their children, that patients who were able to do 
so should contribute something toward the cost of 
their medicines, and that members of churches 
should help to support their own native ministers. 
The transition was not easy. Some Siamese had 
come to expect foreign aid as a right, and when it 
was withdrawn they became estranged and alien- 
ated their friends. But the missionaries properly 
felt that such alienation could and must be lived 
down. In Petchaburi, the’ mission work had to be re- 
constructed from the foundation. 

Let the reader remember that like cases have oc- 
curred among the home mission churches of America. 
Many people, both at home and abroad, are willing to 
get something for nothing whenever possible, and will 
pay for their privileges only when pressure is put upon 
them. The crucial factor everywhere is not ability but 
disposition. American Christians could quadruple their 
missionary gifts if they would. After giving full credit 
to missionaries who have been faithful in urging 


METHODS AND RESULTS 175 


Siamese Christians to assume larger responsibility for 
evangelizing their countrymen and to give systemati- 
cally and proportionately, the fact must be admitted 
that some Christians in Siam have not made satisfac- 
tory response. American readers of this little book, 
who may be disposed to criticise them, may discreetly 
pause long enough to inquire how many dead-heads 
there are in the churches of their own communities, 
and to recall the common remark that there are so 
many delinquents that nine-tenths of the money raised 
by the churches in the United States is contributed 
by one-tenth of their members. 

While candor requires the frank statements in the 
preceding paragraph, we are glad to add that great 
advance has been made over former conditions. 
Toward the cost of maintaining Christian work and 
institutions last year, ticals 333,011 were contributed 
by the Siamese and Lao. And let it be remembered 
that a tical (43 cents) means quite as much to a native 
of Siam as five or six dollars to an American. A num- 
ber of the present properties of the Mission, as we have 
noted on another page, have been provided, either 
wholly or in part, by the Siamese themselves. 


Self-Support in Mission Hospitals 


The running expenses of most of the hospitals, ex- 
cept the salaries of the medical missionaries, are cov- 
ered by fees and local contributions. Patients who 
are too poor to pay are gladly treated without charge; 
but those who can pay are expected to do so.. This 





176 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





policy has been found necessary for medical as well 
as financial reasons. Natives who receive medicine for 
nothing often fail to take it according to directions, and 
sometimes even throw it away. When they pay for it, 
even though the fee be small, they are more careful. 
This is human nature. Americans as well as Asiatics 
value what has cost them something. 


Self-Support in Mission Schools 


The present site of the Bangkok Christian College 
was paid for by gifts of the Siamese themselves, the 
King heading the subscription and his nobles and peo- 
ple joining him in substantial evidence of their appre- 
ciation of this fine institution. The buildings were 
erected by American funds. In spite of the fact that 
the College charges fees which make it self-supporting, 
it is now so overcrowded that a new and larger plant 
has become necessary. 

A good example of persistent effort was given by 
Miss Edna S. Cole, former: principal of the Harriet 
House School for Girls in Bangkok. When she took 
charge many years ago, it was a charity school. Every- 
thing was free—tuition, rooms, board and’ books. 
Discipline was difficult. The girls who came from non- 
Christian families were usually from the lower class of 
society and spent what money they had on cheap jewelry 
and sweetmeats. Girls from wealthier families some- 
times came to school with jewelry worth from five hun- 
dred to a thousand ticals, and cried when they were not 
allowed to wear it. When Miss Cole asked parents and 


METHODS AND RESULTS 177 


pupils to pay what they could afford, there was a great 
outcry. She tactfully but firmly insisted until she 
brought about a wholesome change. The School be- 
came wholly self-supporting, except for the salaries of 
the foreign missionaries. Discipline and scholarship 
became satisfactory, and the School became, and it con- 
tinues to be under Miss Cole’s successors in the Wat- 
tana Wittaya Academy, the most popular and influen- 
tial school for girls in lower Siam. 

Pupils in all the schools of the Mission, except 
the poorest, pay fees, and those who cannot pay do 
a prescribed amount of manual labor. Parents in 
Siam are accustomed to make sacrifices for the edu- 
cation of their sons. The people do not show the 
same interest in educating their daughters. More- 
over, there are government schools in all the larger 
towns and nearly all the country villages, so that it 
is easy for children to attend them and live at home. 
Missionaries urge the people to educate all their 
children of both sexes, and there are not Christian 
boarding schools in every village, but only at sta- 
tions. Parents at the out-stations cannot easily 
send food, while many village Christians have very 
little money for fees. There are, besides, orphan 
children to be provided for. Deficits are usually 
caused by these orphans and the Christian boys and 
girls from village churches. It would be suicidal to 
exclude such boys, for in Siam, as in America, the 
best material often comes from Christian homes in 
the smaller towns. 





178 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 








Comparatively modest plants will do for the 
schools in provincial cities. The native mind of 
the first and even the second generation of most 
village Christians cannot easily be educated beyond 
a certain stage. The Siamese of today desire edu- 
cation, but they have not the background of cen- 
turies of hereditary reverence for learning that the 
people of China have, nor is there such a general 
ambition to obtain it in order to excel foreigners, 
as there is among the Japanese. In Siam, the 
point of intellectual saturation, as it were, is now 
ordinarily reached in a school of medium grade. 
Scholars in the provincial schools who show larger 
mental capacity, and their number is increasing, 
can be sent to Bangkok or Chiengmai where fuller 
equipment and higher standards afford facilities for 
youths who should be given further training. Such 
influential centers as these two cities, six hundred 
miles apart, one dominating the south and the other 
the north, should have institutions of the best grade 
and equipment. 

All the schools of the Mission must compete with 
Roman Catholic or Buddhist government institu- 
tions, or both. Financially, they cannot cope with 
the government schools, which have free buildings, 
free teachers and government support and patron- 
age. The Mission must rely upon the superior 
grade of its schools and keep them up to a high 
standard, or it will lose the brightest students. 
Therefore, while the missionaries continue to press 


RIGHT: ASIAMESE 
MADONNA 


BELOW: “AN,” A 

PUPIL AT WAT- 

TANA WITTAYA 
ACADEMY 





ABOVE: “CHA- 
WEE,” A SIAMESE 
SCHOOL GIRL 


LEFT; PUPILS OF 
BANGKOK CHRIS- 
TIAN COLLEGE 








METHODS AND RESULTS 179 


for all practicable local support, Christians in Amer- 
ica must for years to come be looked to for the 
necessary buildings and their equipment and the 
support of the missionaries who superintend them. 
Otherwise, the churches of Siam will never have a 
qualified native ministry, an intelligent laity, and 
educated women for their schools and homes. Amer- 
ican Christians should, therefore, recognize their 
duty to aid mission schools in Siam, 


Scope of Mission Work 


Statistics of missionary work of course change 
from year to year, but it may help to visualize the 
work in Siam to say that there are now 95 American 
missionaries, 474 native evangelists and teachers, 
10 principal stations, 104 outstations, 50 organized 
churches, 114 unorganized groups of Christians, 
7,817 adult communicants, 101 Sunday schools with 
6,812 scholars, 38 schools with 2,692 students, a theo- 
logical Seminary, a press which issued last year 
7,288,738 pages, 10 hospitals and 14 dispensaries, 
whose record last year was 12,495 patients and 20,- 
630 visits in homes, the Boon Itt Memorial Institute 
for young men, and the Leper Asylum at Chiengmai. 

It will thus be seen that Christian work in Siam 
is considerable and varied, touching life at many 
points and exalting the godliness that “is profitable 
unto all things, having promise of the life that now 
is and of that which is to come.” For its mainten- 
ance last year, including the support of the mission- 


ee 


180 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

ah hy NNR i nN leet ae 
aries, Presbyterians in America gave through their 
Board in New York $189,307. Do readers of these 
pages know any place in America where so much 
Christian work is done on such a small budget? 
More money is spent on the churches, schools and 
hospitals of an average American city of fifty thou- 
sand inhabitants than is spent for evangelistic, edu- 
cational, medical and social service work in the 
whole of Siam. 

Statistics, however, seldom tell the whole story. 
Stephen’s sermon was not a failure because his au- 
dience stoned him. St. Paul did not fail on Mars 
Hill because only a few believed. At the time of 
our Lord’s death, even His disciples did not deem 
His three years of incessant labor a success. The 
Church of the first century is often held up as an 
ideal for modern Christian workers, but, not to 
dwell here upon the question whether the compari- 
son between St. Paul and the modern missionary is a 
fair one, which the author discussed in his book on 
“Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands” (pp. 25 
sq.), the fact remains that the total number of Chris- 
tians in the Roman Empire at the end of the first cen- 
tury was not as great as the number of Christians in 
China alone at the end of the first century of mission- 
ary work in that country. Mohammedanism is today 
making such progress in Africa that it is engulfing ad- 
ditional areas. When the author was a college sopho- 
more he wrote an oration on Mormonism, and after 
describing “that moral and intellectual octopus,” he 





METHODS AND RESULTS 181 





glowingly declared that it could live only in isolation 
and that the extension of railways and the rising sun 
of civilization would soon destroy it. Well, railways 
have made Mormon territory as accessible as Kansas, 
and the alleged sun of civilization is shining full upon 
it; but Mormonism is far stronger than it was when 
that sophomorical oration was delivered. The argu- 
ment of numbers may prove too much. Socialists 
and Christian Scientists point with pride to the 
rapidity of their growth, but their opponents do not 
concede the validity of the argument. 

We do not mean to imply that numbers should 
not be taken into account in estimating the prog- 
ress of a given movement. Asa rule God associates 
conversions with faithful preaching and personal 
work, and if conversions do not follow, workers 
should seek the reason upon their knees. We sim- 
ply say that numbers alone are not always determi- 
native. If they were, the Church would have to re- 
vise its judgment regarding some missionaries 
whose names are written high on its roll of honor. 
Carey in India and Morrison in China toiled seven 
years before their hearts were gladdened by one 
convert. Tyler in South Africa saw fifteen laborious 
years pass before the first Zulu accepted Christ, 
while Gilmour preached for twenty years in Mon- 
golia before visible results appeared. 

Contemporary opinion as to whether a movement 
is successful is often at fault. As in the case of the 
ministry of our Lord Himself, the perspective of 


AWN gel dees etn LE pe a 


182 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

later generations is required for balanced judgment. 
In estimating missionary work, we should consider 
not so much the numbers that have been gathered 
by a given date as the character of the truth that is 
proclaimed, the wisdom of the methods that are 
adopted, and the sincerity and devotion of those who 
propagate it. No enterprise conducted by human 
beings is perfect. Missionaries, like their critics, 
are fallible men and women. They do not profess 
to be inerrant. Ina land like Siam where conditions 
are peculiarly difficult, they have had to feel their 
way along, learn by experience, and do the best they 
could with the limited resources at their command. 
But beyond all question, the missionaries in Siam 
have taught the pure Gospel. Their methods have 
been indicated, and there can be no question about 
their sincerity and devotion. Some of the practical 
results have been described. Numerous others 
might be cited. 


A Striking Transformation 


The transformation in the lives of those who have 
accepted Christ is striking. The head chief of a 
village on the peninsula was notorious as a hard 
character. He was converted under the faithful 
preaching of Dr. Dunlap. How do we know that 
his conversion was genuine? Well, he summoned 
all the people of his village and announced to them 
his decision to follow Christ. Then he asked the 
forgiveness of those whom he had wronged. He 


METHODS AND RESULTS 183 


brought out his bottles of liquor and broke them. 
He amazed his creditors by paying their claims in 
full; they had never expected to get anything out 
of him. He put away all his wives and concubines, 
except his first wife, making provision for their 
support and that of their children so that they might 
not suffer. Then, in the presence of all his people, 
he kneeled down and solemnly dedicated himself 
and all his possessions to the service of God. 

The true Christian is a marked man among his 
fellows, distinguished not merely for his difference 
in faith, but for his intelligence, morality, thrift, and 
integrity. 


Social Results of Missionary Effort 

It should be noted, too, that while the number of 
conversions has not been exceptionally great, the 
social results of missionary effort have been notably 
large. Indeed it is probable that missionary teaching 
has had more influence on the public sentiment of the 
country than in many lands where the number of 
converts has been greater. Several of the reforms 
inaugurated by the Government are directly trace- 
able to the influence of missionaries. The rulers of 
a country in which Buddhism is the state religion, 
and of which the King is the ex-officio head, have 
not personally accepted the Christian faith, but they 
have not hesitated to adopt suggestions which 
Christian missionaries have made. Said the Govy- 
ernor of Puket: “Wherever the Christian mission- 


TS 


184 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

ary settles, he brings good to the peoples. Progress, 
beneficial institutions, cleanliness, and uplifting of 
the people result from his labors.” And he told Dr. 
Dunlap that he would give 5,000 ticals for a hospital 
in Tapteang and 10,000 ticals for one in Puket, if the 
missionaries would settle there. 

Reference was made in a former chapter to the 
attitude of the father of the present King. We may 
add here that he said to Dr. Dunlap in 1898: “I am 
glad you are here working for my people, and I wish 
you success.” Further reference is appropriate here 
to some of the practical manifestations of his appre- 
ciation. Strict Buddhist though he was, he and his 
officials not only granted full religious toleration 
but assigned valuable property to Christian mission 
work at a nominal value. The King personally con- 
tributed $2,400 in 1888 to enlarge the mission hos- 
pital at Petchaburi. He also gave at various times 
$1,000 to the girls’ school at the same station, $1,300 
to the mission hospital at ‘Nakawn Sritamarat and he 
headed the list of donors of the present site of the 
Bangkok Christian College. Over eighty of his 
princes and nobles added their names. The Queen, 
in 1895, gave the money for a woman’s ward at the 
Petchaburi hospital, and $1,500 to form ‘The 
Queen’s Scholarship Fund” at the Harriet House 
School for Girls in Bangkok. Prince Devawongse 
personally said to the author in Bangkok: “Your 
missionaries first brought civilization to my coun- 
try.” The American Minister at the time, the Hon. 





METHODS AND RESULTS 185 





Hamilton King, said that at a banquet in 1899, Prince 
Damrong, then Minister of the Interior, declared in 
the hearing of every one at the table: “Mr. King, 
I want to say to you that we have great respect for 
your American missionaries in our country, and ap- 
preciate very highly the work they are doing for 
our people. I want this to be understood by every 
one, and if you are in a position to let it be known 
to your countrymen, I wish you would say this for 
me.” Mr. King added as his own opinion: “Siam is a 
country in which the American missionaries have 
made no mistakes of importance and where they 
enjoy the fullest respect and the entire confidence 
of the Government. It is not only their preaching 
that is making their influence felt; these men are 
a power for good along all lines of influence .... 
And by endeavoring to make the people to whom 
they were sent a little stronger, a little happier, and 
a little better, they have gradually been commend- 
ing their gospel of a good and holy God who is 
everywhere working out the best for His children, 
of which great family all men are members.” The 
Hon. John Barrett, American Minister to Siam 1894- 
1898, also bore frequent and emphatic testimony to 
the high character and great value of the mission- 
aries and their work. 
Obstacles 

Obstacles to Christianity, however, are not wanting. 
Vices, against which there is little or no public sen- 
timent, weaken the character of the people. Lan- 


While Pra vate ALA AE a 


186 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 


(OL 0 ease eee ee a SS 


guid indifference is as hard to overcome as ancestral 
worship in China, jealous nationalism in Japan, and 
caste in India. As we noted in a former chapter, a 
tropical climate, a prolific soil, and a comparatively 
sparse population remove those incentives to energy 
which in China compel men to toil or starve. This 
natural physical and mental sloth is intensified by 
the teaching of Buddhism since it exalts the passive 
rather than the active life. When the traditional 
faith idealizes dreamy meditation under a palm tree, 
it is not easy to induce people to follow One who 
said: “If any man will come after me, let him deny 
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” 


Western Civilization a Mixed Blessing 


Moreover, the period of isolation and seclusion 
from the life of the world is past. Siam, like several 
other Oriental lands, is now wide open. Steamships, 
railways, telegraph lines and post offices bring in 
both bad and good influences. The materialism as 
well as the religion of the West has come to Siam. 
The impact of revolutionary ideas is causing a 
mental and social and moral upheaval. The old 
standards are crumbling and new standards have 
not yet been formed. Such a transition period is 
fraught with peculiar dangers. The King recognizes 
this, but, as we have noted in a former chapter, he 
believes that the proper course is to lead the nation 
back along the paths of Buddhism rather than for- 
ward along the lines of Christianity. This policy 


METHODS AND RESULTS 187 


makes the work of the Mission and the progress of 
the native Church more difficult. 

In spite of these and other obstacles that might 
be mentioned, Siam is a promising missionary field. 
Here is an extensive territory with a population of 
over nine million people who are accessible to the 
Gospel of Christ. There is little of the bitter poverty 
which prevails in China and in India. Then there is 
no caste, no ancestral worship, no child marriage, 
no shutting up of women in inaccessible zenanas. 
Missionaries are regarded with friendliness by 
people of all ranks. Their lives and property are 
as safe as if they were in America. Princes and 
nobles are their friends. Missionary educators teach 
the sons of governors, judges, and high commis- 
sioners, and missionary physicians are called into 
the homes of the proudest officials. Government 
officials have recently been known to bring their 
daughters as much as thirty days by oxcart to put 
them in the Mission schools. 


The Unreached Millions 


The record of Christian achievement in Siam is 
encouraging in itself; but when one considers the 
magnitude of the task and the comparative inade- 
quacy of missionary resources, encouragement gives 
way to anxiety. We may well thank God for 7,817 
adult communicants and the larger number under 
Christian influence in schools, hospitals and Sunday 
schools. But there are 9,221,000 people in Siam— 





188 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





only one adult Protestant communicant for every 
1,179 people. Only six of the eighteen provinces 
have mission stations. There are vast areas in which 
there is not a single Christian. A region in eastern 
Siam as large as the State of Minnesota and with 
two and a half million people has not one resident 
missionary. There are literally thousands of villages 
within the nominal area of existing stations which 
the scanty force of missionaries is unable to reach. 
Think of it! Only twenty-four ordained mission- 
aries in all Siam, and that number includes several 
engaged in educational work, recruits learning the 
language, and a percentage absent on account of 
ill health or necessary furloughs. There are only 
twenty single women, most of them in the schools, 
and only six medical missionaries in the whole 
country. Some stations with fields covering hun- 
dreds of square miles have only two or three mis- 
sionaries. Bangkok, with its nearly a million in- 
habitants, one of the great metropolitan cities of 
Asia, dominating Siam as Paris dominates France 
and London, England, with 630 Buddhist temples 
and monasteries and 17,000 Buddhist priests in and 
near the city, has fewer Christian workers than an 
average American town of twelve thousand people. 
The typical provincial station has vast unoccupied 
territories stretching away for scores and some- 
times hundreds of miles. Chiengmai, for example, 
has no limits for indefinite distances north, south 
and west. Lampang and Prae have practically no 


METHODS AND RESULTS 189 


boundaries on the north and south, Chiengrai none 
on the north, east and west and Nan on the north, 
east and south. The bulk of the population of Prae 
province occupies one of the most lovely valleys in 
the world with many villages within a radius of 
fifteen miles from the mission compound so that the 
immediate neighborhood can be easily worked. 
But there are other districts southeast of Prae 
around Utradit and across the Menam River which 
have never seen a missionary, except during a rare 
tour of exploration. Nan Province is the largest in 
the Lao states with a population of 416,000. To say 
nothing of vast areas beyond, where no missionary 
has ever gone, the immediate territory which the 
station tries to cover is as extensive as the combined 
states of Vermont and New Hampshire. A tour by 
Dr. and Mrs. Peoples, occupying 64 days and cover- 
ing a circuit of 300 miles, resulted in 23 baptisms and 
a large number of inquiries; but it touched only a 
part of the rich field which here awaits cultivation. 
Nan and Chiengrai are among the most distant 
points on the globe now occupied by the Presby- 
terian Church. The bi-weekly mail from America 
is often two months old when it reaches the handful 
of lonely missionaries at these stations. The Chieng- 
rai field is about 100 miles square, or almost equal 
to the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and 
Connecticut combined. But the total missionary 
force is two ministers and one physician and their 
wives, and one single woman. 





190 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Occasional tours disclose interesting possibilities. 
The Rev. Dr. J. A. Eakin writes that there are many 
villages of the Karens from Burma scattered among 
the foothills of western Siam. A deputation of these 
people visited him several years ago with an earnest 
request for religious teaching. Dr. Eakin gladly re- 
sponded, taking with him a Siamese evangelist, a 
cook, and a driver of an oxcart with their provisions 
and camp outfit. The second day brought them to 
the mountains between Petchaburi and the Karen 
villages. Before daylight they started across the 
pass with a guide. The way was rough and steep. 
The oxen were used only to the plains and were 
afraid. It required all four of the men helping with 
shouts to keep them going. When the dawn broke 
they found themselves on the other side of the 
divide, where the grade was easier. Here and there 
they had glimpses through the trees of tumbled 
hills, gradually rising to the main mountain chain 
between Siam and Burma. Passing down through 
the primitive forest, they came to the first of the 
Karen villages about eleven o’clock. Here, being 
strangers, their baggage was carefully inspected 
by the headman, searching for whiskey, for these 
people allow no intoxicants to be brought into their 
villages. When they were convinced that the mis- 
sionary had nothing contraband, a meeting was 
arranged. Shortly after dark nearly the whole vil- 
lage assembled and listened intently to the Gospel 
for the first time. One of the leading men then 


METHODS AND RESULTS 191 


offered to lead the party to another village. They 
started before daylight the next morning and, after 
two hours of rapid walking through the forest, met 
about forty village people who were on a fishing 
excursion, with nets and baskets for catching fish 
in the swift mountain torrents of that region. The 
leader was one of the men who had visited Petcha- 
buri years before to beg for a religious teacher. 
He recognized the missionary at once. In a few 
minutes they were all seated under the forest trees, 
listening quietly to the message of salvation. They 
cordially invited the missionary to return and show 
the pictures of the life of Christ in their village. 
Then the party went on and visited the rest of the 
villagers and gave the message to them. 


The Thin Red Line 


The limited number of missionaries available for 
itinerating makes such tours too rare for perma- 
nent results. They lift the pall of fog for a moment 
and then it settles down again for an indefinite pe- 
riod. It is said that of all the great Tai race only 
a little over a third have heard of Christ and that 
10,000,000 are so far away from mission stations 
that they are beyond the sphere of Christian influ- 
ence. Of the other millions, many thousands have 
never seen a missionary. So small is the present 
force that it sometimes happens that when a mis- 
sionary in charge of a school goes home on neces- 





192 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





sary furlough, an already overburdened evangelistic 
worker has to add it to his burdens. In other cases, 
husbands and wives have been separated in order to 
tide over the work until relieved by someone re- 
turning from furlough. Hospitals must sometimes 
be kept running by a trained nurse, or by a native 
assistant who, however willing, needs the counsel 
of a medical missionary’s superior knowledge of 
surgery and medicine. 

And yet Siam needs a relatively larger missionary 
force than some other mission fields. The popula- 
tion is scattered over such an extensive area that a 
missionary must travel much farther to reach a 
given number of people than in more densely popu- 
lated countries where a million people are within a 
short distance of a station. 

Effective touring, too, is difficult in a tropical 
country, where, except in the neighborhood of the larger 
towns and on the single line of railway, all traveling 
must be along narrow and rough jungle trails, some- 
times nothing more than the boulder-strewn beds 
of mountain torrents in the dry season, and where 
even that is impossible during the rains. Climatic 
conditions require a shorter term of service than in 
many other fields, and at the same time make it 
more imprudent for those who remain to attempt 
large additional burdens during the furloughs of 
their colleagues. It is impossible wholly to prevent 
this, for boards have neither the men nor the money 
for large reenforcements. But the consequences in 





METHODS AND RESULTS 193 





tropical lands are so unfortunate that special effort 
should be made to guard against them. Five or six 
years’ continuous residence in Siam is long enough 
for the average foreigner and he needs a complete 
change at the end of that time. Europeans in busi- 
ness in Siam seldom remain as long as that without 
furloughs. It is true that the missionary’s habits 
and motives are more conducive to the preservation 
of health than those of the average foreigner who 
goes to Asia for other than missionary purposes. 
Still, malaria is not always a respecter of persons, 
and loneliness and the exactions of missionary life 
may unbalance the nervous system of a saint. Be- 
fore the completion of the railway a missionary 
wife at Sritamarat was once the only white woman 
at the station for six months. As we write these 
pages, another missionary wife is alone at Prae. 
Some people at home like to say that home and 
foreign missions are one. If so, how can they de- 
fend 1,316 Presbyterian ministers in Pennsylvania, 
and only twenty-four for a larger population in Siam? 
Even this comparison fails to indicate the truth, for 
there are thousands of ministers of other denomi- 
nations in Pennsylvania, but not one in Siam. Of 
course we do not want to send a thousand mission- 
aries into Siam. Such a reenforcement would not 
only be impracticable from the viewpoint of avail- 
able supply of men and money, but would be in- 
compatible with our missionary aim, which is to 
found and develop the Siamese Church; but surely 





194 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 

TRAN ROOM RNAS LN NCCAA RIE CRITI «ast 
the present number of missionaries is pitiably in- 
adequate. 


American Responsibility 


In other lands the presence of several denomina- 
tional missionary agencies distributes responsibility. 
In Siam, American Presbyterians are the only Prot- 
estant denomination at work. They therefore have 
a distinctive duty. In his book on “Mission Prob- 
lems and Mission Methods in South China,” Dr. J. 
Campbell Gibson truly said that “those who under- 
take to carry on mission work among great peo- 
ples undertake great responsibilities. We have no 
right to penetrate these nations with a revolution- 
ary Gospel of enormous power unless we are pre- 
pared to make every sacrifice and every effort for 
the proper care and the wise training of the organi- 
zation of the Christian community itself which, 
while it must become increasingly a source of revo- 
lutionary thought and movement, is also the only 
body that can by the help and grace of God give 
these far-reaching movements a healthy direction 
and lead them to safe and happy issues.” 


Devoted Missionaries 
We cannot close this little book without a further 
word regarding the missionaries in Siam. The history 
of their work abounds in incidents of varied kinds. A 
medical missionary in one station killed a cobra on his 
porch, nursed his cook, who was dying ot bubonic 


METHODS AND RESULTS 195 


plague, and her son, who was dying of cholera—all 
within twenty-four hours. In a temperature of 130 
degrees in the sun, he made coffins with his own hands, 
and buried the dead that night by the flickering light 
of acandle. Then he went quietly on with his work, 
never dreaming that he was doing a heroic thing. Of 
course this was not a common experience, but it is 
a possible one in a tropical country. 

When we arrived at another station, our hostess, 
on showing us to our room, pleasantly said that we 
need not be at all apprehensive about snakes, that 
her husband had killed a cobra in the room a few 
days before, but that there was nothing dangerous 
in it now. Its mate might be around somewhere, 
but it was being watched for. Lizards, several 
inches long, were scrambling about the walls and 
ceilings, but she assured us that they were not only 
harmless but beneficial since they preyed on trouble- 
some insects. It was possible, she added, that one 
of them might drop on us, and in that case we had 
better not attempt to brush it off, for if we did its 
tenacious feet would probably take an unpleasant 
hold of the skin—step over to the wall and let it 
get off of its own accord. She appeared to think that 
such things were of no consequence, merely incidents 
that were all in a day’s work. 

Reference was made on a preceding page to Edna S. 
Cole’s great work in the education of girls. Forty-four 
years of her life were given to Siam, and the loving 
regard and high esteem of prince and peasant, the 


Ean 


196 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





splendid Wattana Wittaya Academy for girls, and the 
large number of Siamese women who have come under 
the influence of her compelling personality and conse- 
crated life afford striking testimony to the way this 
woman has been used of God in Siam. Space limits 
forbid mention of many devoted men and women to 
whose character and labors we would gladly refer. 
Only a few have been indicated. 

A German naturalist once made his way up to Chieng- 
mai and was welcomed to Dr. Wilson’s home. The 
missionary loved the trees and all plant life, and told 
the naturalist much about them. There was soon a 
strong bond between the two men, although one 
was a rationalist and the other a Christian min- 
ister. When the naturalist came down to Bangkok, 
he said in the German Club: “You think me to be 
a skeptic, a rationalist. But I have read the Bible 
enough to know considerable about the person of 
Jesus Christ; and I want to tell you that the good 
old missionary with whom I lodged in Chiengmai 
is more like Jesus than any other man that I have 
seen on this earth.” Dr. Wilson had marked mus- 
ical and poetic gifts and he wrote or translated over 
600 hymns. The only hymn book used by the Lao 
Christians was prepared by him. He became known 
as the Sweet Psalmist of northern Siam, and for 
long years to come the people of God in that coun- 
try will sing the hymns of faith and love which he 
brought to them. He passed away June 3, 1911, at 
the ripe age of eighty-one and, at his own request, 


METHODS AND RESULTS 197 


his body was laid in the little cemetery at Lampang, 
_ where it is lovingly tended by the people who ven- 
erate his memory. 

Dr. McGilvary survived his life-long friend Wil- 
son only a few weeks. Together from youth to old 
age, in death they were not divided. August 22, 
1911, at the age of eighty-three, the patriarch of 
northern Siam “fell on sleep’ amid the tears of a 
whole people. Many missionary biographies are those 
of missionaries of European churches. We had men- 
tioned this to Dr. McGilvary and suggested that the 
best service he could render the Church in his declining 
years would be the preparation of a volume which 
would embody the results of his wide and rich experi- 
ence—an experience which covered the entire history 
of the Lao Mission and which might pass beyond our 
reach if he were to be taken away before he had put it 
in writing. He was spared to complete the manuscript, 
and the literature of missions has been permanently 
enriched by his fine volume entitled “A Half Cen- 
tury Among the Siamese and Lao.” We hope that 
those who read these pages will turn to that book 
and drink deeply of its knowledge and inspiration. 

Dr, Eugene P. Dunlap’s heart was so wholly in 
his work that he begrudged the time that he had 
to spend in America on furloughs. Near the end of 
‘one of his last visits to America, he wrote: “We are 
now packing for Siam. O, but it will be joyful to 
return to the Master’s work in beloved Siam!” One 
of my colleagues in the Board once showed him a 





198 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





sketch of his career which had been provided for 
the newspapers in connection with some addresses . 
that he was to deliver, in which he was character- 
ized as “easily the foremost foreigner in the King- 
dom of Siam, everywhere welcomed by governors, 
merchants, farmers, and the poorest leper, frequent- 
ly closeted with King or ministers who can learn 
from him as from no other the true status of remote 
jungle dwellers; or it may be adjudicating cases 
which by common consent of judge and litigants 
had been reserved for his arbitration.” At the bot- 
tom of a copy of the sketch is the comment in Dr. 
Dunlap’s handwriting: “Would it not be better to 
say: ‘A sinner saved by grace and privileged to 
preach the unsearchable riches of Christ in Siam.’ ” 

Dr. Dunlap was appointed a missionary in 1874, 
and he labored for Siam till his death in 1918. Mem- 
orable was the scene at his funeral. Princes un- 
covered and peasants wept as the procession passed. 
His worn and weary body was laid to rest under 
the palm trees of the land for which he died, but 
his soul goes marching on. 

Who can think unmoved of that missionary widow 
who, when her husband died at an interior station 
of Siam and there was then no place nearer than 
Bangkok where the body could be buried, caused the 
coffin to be placed in a native boat, leaving a space- 
eighteen inches wide and eight feet long on each 
side. She sat on one side, a friend on the other, and 
the native boatmen pushed the craft out upon the 


METHODS AND RESULTS 199 


river. That was eight o’clock Friday morning. All 
day they journeyed under the blazing tropical sun, 
and the reader can imagine what that meant both 
to the living and the dead. When darkness fell, the 
stars surely looked down in pity upon that stricken 
widow crouching so close to the dead body of her 
husband that she could not avoid touching his cof- 
fin. It was not until two o’clock Saturday after- 
noon that the pitiful ride ended at Bangkok. Flesh 
and blood could not have borne such a strain, if God 
had not heard the dying petition of the husband » 
who, foreseeing the coming sorrow, had brokenly 
prayed: “Lord, help her!” 

The soil of Siam has been made forever sacred by 
the dust of missionaries, many of whom when liv- 
ing had expressed a desire that their bodies should 
lie in the land to whose evangelization they had 
dedicated their lives. Well might one apply to these 
lonely graves the apostrophe of the Persian Chris- 
tian, who, beside the bodies of missionaries who had 
died in his native land, exclaimed : “O winds, that.sweep 
over those who have died for a cause they loved more 
than life, touch lightly, we beg, the sacred dust! 
O sun, touch with thy burning rays the lives of 
those who still live and toil! Let the story of their 
untiring energy and unwavering faith and hope in 
Jesus Christ be proclaimed in coming generations, 
to stimulate, encourage, and inspire the children of 


God!” 





200 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Our memory lovingly lingers upon our journeys 
through the land of the White Elephant—the month 
upon its mighty rivers, now towed by a noisy launch, 
now poled by half-naked tattooed boatmen, now 
shooting tumultuous rapids through weirdly savage 
cafions ; the days of elephant travel through the vast 
forests, slowly picking our way along the boulder- 
strewn beds of mountain streams, traversing beauti- 
ful valleys and climbing rocky heights, the huge 
beasts never making a misstep even on the most 
slippery steeps; the nights when we pitched our 
tents in the heart of the jungle, the campfire throw- 
ing its fitful light upon the boles of giant trees and 
the tangled labyrinth of tropical vines mid which 
monkeys curiously watched us and unseen beasts 
growled their anger at our intrusion. Most delight- 
ful of all are our memories of the unvarying kind- 
ness of the people who, from the King down 
through princes, commissioners, and governors, to 
humble villagers, showed a hospitable friendliness 
which quite won our hearts, while it would be hard 
to conceive a more loving welcome than was ex- 
tended to us by the missionaries. More profitable 
to us than they could possibly have been to the 
workers were our long conferences regarding the 
Lord’s work in that far-off land. It is prospering 
in their hands, and it will prosper to a far greater 
degree if Christians in America will give them that 
loving, prayerful, and generous cooperation which 
they so well deserve. 


INDEX 


Aborigines, 28-30. 

Advisers, Foreign, 67, 76. 

Agriculture, 53; see also rice, 
soil. 

Airplanes, 45-46. 

America, 76-83. 

Anam, 66. 

Animals, 13, 144. 

Animism, 29, 103-104. 

Army, 49, 65. 

Automobiles, 44, 46. 

Ayuthia, 23, 30. 


Bangkok, 9, 32, 188. 

Banks, 58, 72, 160-161. 

Betel nut, 56-57. 

Bible, 129-130, 158; American 
Bible Society, 82, 111, 159; 
in Schools, 150; translations 
of, 108, 109. 

Bicycles, 43-44. 

Boards, American, 109-110; 
Baptist, 111-112; Presby- 
terian, 112 f. 

Boatmen, 15. 

Boon Itt, 16, 147, 163; Insti- 
tute, 164. 

per Dan, 3, 110-111, 115- 
1 


Briggs, W. A., 128. 

Britain, Great, 70-73. 

Buddhism, 14, 30-31, 49, 85 f., 
186, 188. 

Buffalo, water, 13, 33. 

Burma, 26. 


Calendar, 50. 

Cambodians, 26, 28. 
Caswell, J., 31, 110, 117. 
Catechism, Buddhist, 95-96. 
Catholics, Roman, 69-70. 


201 


Chantaboon, 24, 68, 71. 

Chiengmai, 23, 122, 128, 167- 
168, 188. 

Chiengrai, 126-127, 189. 

Chiengrung, see Kiulung- 
kiang. 

Children, 34-35, 

Chinese, 27-28. 

Christians, Chinese, 109, 112, 
146-147; Lao, 122 f., 133, 
168-171; Siamese, 114, 119, 
146, 182-183, see statistics. 

See cee vs. Buddhism, 99- 


Chulalongkorn, King, 31 - 32, 
47-49, 61-62, 72, 141, 184. 
Church, first, 114; 167 chap. 
Climate, 24-25, 34, 192-193. 
Cole, Edna, 5, 176-177, 195. 
Colleges, 148; Bangkok Chris- 
tian, 149; Medical, 54, 118; 
Prince Royal’s, 149, 168. 
Concubinage, 37, 55. 
Courts, 42-43, 68, 70. 
Cremation, 37-38. 
Crocker, Courtenay, 76. 
Currency, 46-47. 


sere oe: Prince, 54, 62, 72, 

185. 

Dean, William, 111-112. 

Demons, 103-104, 156-157. 

Devawongse, Prince, 54-55, 62, 
184 


Diseases, 111, 136, 142, 156, 
194 


Divorce, 55. 

Dodd, W. C., 86, 89, 128, 130- 
131, 134. 

Dunlap, Eugene P., 58, 135- 
144, 197-198. 


Spann SRLORL nd Pa se SD USPS ES aes 


202 


THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Eakin, J. A., 160, 190. 

Education, 47-48 ; Government 
dept., 148, 150; Mission, 47- 
48; 145, 147-153. 

Electricity, 43. 

Elephants, 13, 16-19, white, 12. 

England, see Great Britain. 

Evangelistic work, 144, 146- 
147, 169-172. 

Exports, 46. 

Extra-territoriality, 66, 68, 70, 
72, 74 £., 76-77. 


Family, 51, 55. 

Feltus, George H., 113. 
Forests, 25, 26, 42. 
France, 65-70. 

Fruits, 25. 

Funerals, 37-38. 


Gambling, 57-59. 

Gautama, 93, 98, 102. 

Germany, 63-64. 

Governments, American, 76- 
83; European, 61 £; Siam- 
ese, 10, 31-33, 48-55, 61 f. 

Gutzlaff, Karl, 108-109. 


Health, public, 35, 53. 

Hinkhouse, J. F., 134. 

History of Siam, 26, 30. 

Hookworm, 162-163. 

Hospitals, 54; Government, 

118; Mission, 119, 156-158, 

167, 175-176. 

House, Samuel, 113. 

Houseboats, 15-16. 

Houses, 33, 58. 

Hymns, 196. 


Imports, 46; dues, 73. 
Industrial work, 160. 
Insane, 54. 

Insects, 13, 19, 25, 195. 


Intemperance, 56, 161. 

Irrigation, 53. 

Irwin, Robert, 159. 

Itinerating, 120, 122, 126-127, 
129, 130-133, 136-144, 190- 
191, 192. 


Jaequenyns, Rolin, 76. 
James, Eldon R., 76, 77. 
Judson, Ann, 108. 


“Kalamazoo,” 139. 

Karens, 190-191. 

Karma, 94. 

King, 30-33, 48-55, 58, 126, 186. 

King, Hamilton, 77, 91, 165, 
185. 

Kiulungkiang, 131. 

Korat, 23, 68. 


Lampang, 128, 188. 

Lao, 27, 38-39, 41, 122, 130-131. 

Legends, 86-88. 

Lepers, 54, 153-154; American 
Mission to, 155. 

Literary work, 145, 158-159. 

Luang Prabang, 66, 67, 69. 


McFarland, George B., 118; 
Samuel G., 118. 

McGilvary, Daniel, 69, 90, 121- 
We 124, 126-128, 135, 167, 
97. 

McKean, James W., 145, 153- 
154, 164. 

Malays, 28. 

Manufactures, 11. 

Marriage, 36, 124. 

Martyrs, 123. 

Mattoon, Stephen, 147. 

Medical work, 145, 156-158. 

Mekong River, 22, 66, 71. 

Menam River, 9, 11, 15-16, 19, 22. 


INDEX 203 


Meping River, 19. 

Merit, 85, 94. 115. 

Methods, missionary, 144 f. 

Millikin, B. Carter, 150-151. 

Missionaries, 10, 14, 75, 77, 79, 
80-83, 88-91, 107 chap., 135 
chap., 165, 188, 191-199; pio- 
neer, 107 f. 

Mohammedans, 104-105. 

Mongkut, King, 31, 110, 117, 
118. 

Monks, 85 f., 188. 

Morals, 55. 

Morant, Sir Robert, 72-73. 

Mormonism, 180. 


Nan, 189. 

Nan Inta, 122-123. 
Nirvana, 94-96. 
Nurses, 53, 167. 


Obstacles, to missions, 51, 91, 
98, 185 
Opium, 57. 


Paknampo, 22, 24. 

Palace, Royal, 11-12. 

Pali, 92-93. 

Park, Charles E., 132. 

Peguans, 30. 

People, 26-28, 30, 33, 38-39, 41, 
48, 55 f. 

Peoples, G. C., 128, 189. 

Persecution, 115-116, 124. 

Petchaburi,. 24, 117-118. 

Pitsanuloke, 120-121. 

Police, 42. 

Polygamy, 36-37, 55. 

Population, 23, 26, 33. 

Post Offices, 42. 

Poverty, 187. 

Prae, 128, 188, 189. 

Presbyterians, 14; in America, 
180, 194. 


Presbyteries, 172-173. 
Press, printing, 110-111, 158- 
159, 160 


Priests, Buddhist, 85-102, 188; 
French, 69. 

Prisons, 43. 

Property, titles, 74-75, 78. 

Protégés, French, 66-67. 


Raheng, 24. 

Railways, 21, 24, 44-45. 

Ratburi, 24. 

Red Cross, 53, 155. 

Religion, 50-51; Animism, 
103; Buddhism, 85-102; 
Christianity, 92-102. 

Rice, 46. 

Rivers, 143; Mekong, 22, 66, 
71; Menam, 9, 11, 15-16, 19, 
22; Meping, 19. 


Sanitation, 10, 35, 53. 

Sayre, Francis, 76. 

Scenery, 13, 18, 20, 22-23, 144. 

Scriptures, Buddhist, 92-93; 
Christian, see Bible. 

Schools, Government, 47 - 48; 
Harriet House, 113-114, 148- 
149, 176-177; Mission, 32, 
117, 147-153, 160, 167, 173- 
174, 176-179; Wattana Wit- 
taya, 177, 196. 

Self-government, 172-173. 

Self-support, 169, 173-179. 

Shans, 27. 

Siam, area, 21-22; Govern- 
ment of, 10; Gulf of, 9, 119; 
history of, 30; see also scen- 


ery. 

Snakes, 194-195, 

“eee service, 145, 159 f., 183- 
1 


Soil, 25, 34. 





204 THE EXPECTATION OF SIAM 





Songkla, Prince, 10, 54. 
Sritamarat, 24, 119-120. 


Statistics, 179-182, 187-188. 
Statues, 86; of Buddha, 23. 


Steamships, 63. 
Street cars, 44. 


Strobel, Edward H., 67, 76. 


Sunday, 43. 


Tai, 26-27, 130-131, 191. 
Tannery, 162-163. 
Taxes, 73, 76. 
Taylor, Hugh, 129. 
Teak, 13, 26. 
Telegraphs, 42. 
Telephones, 42. 
Temperance, 161-162. 
Temples, see wats. 
Theatricals, 57. 
“Tigers, Wild,” 49. 
Tobacco, 56. 


3316 


Toleration, 32, 83, 91, 124-126. 

Trade, 46, 63, 79-80; of Siam, 
Le 

Trang, 24, 121. 

Transmigration, 96-97. 

Travelers, 39. 

Treaties, 58, 61 f., 73 f., 112. 


Utradit, 16. 


Vaccination, 111. 
Vajiranana, Prince, 92. 
Verney, Frederick, 48, 73. 
Village, model, 164. 


Wars, 30; World War, 63-65. 
Wats, 12, 85 f., 188. 
White Crow, 86-88. 


* Wilson, Jonathan, 122, 196. 


Women, 35-37. 
Yunnan, 131-133. 





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